40 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



old farmer once said, "lawyering and doctoring come by learn- 

 ing, but farming comes by nature," and it is triumphantly asked, 

 "can a boy turn a better furrow or lift a bigger stone for going 

 through college ?" Perhaps not, and yet unless effort be directed 

 by mind, as well as muscle, it is a needlessly up hill work. A 

 boy grown on a farm might, by the time lie is of age, be able to 

 practice the craft even without more of education than an ox 

 gets ; but he would be a mere operator, a living machine, travel- 

 ing the round of work as taught, but incapable of improving 

 modes of operation, or of varying thcni advantageously to suit 

 different circumstances, and understanding nothing of their the- 

 ory, or of the principles upon which they are based. 



Tradition savs that formerly, when the bag of '^nun was car- 

 ried to mill on the horse's back, it was balanced by the addition 

 of a stone of equal weight. The light of science dawned on the 

 mind of him who discovered an equally effectual mode of accom- 

 plishing the desired end without such addition ; ar.d such discov- 

 eries, in all the varied departments which have a bearing upon 

 the subject of agriculture, will supply the want now under con- 

 sideiation. 



The application of science to agriculture is of comparatively 

 recent date. In the past it has groped in the dark, or hobbled 

 along by guess, but some progress has been made in this direc- 

 tion, and it is gratifying to believe that at no time have so many 

 minds been busy in the field, the workshop, and the laboratory, 

 to discover the laws of nature and their relations and bearings 

 on the arts of cultivation, so that they may be made available 

 in practice, as at the present. 



The researches of the geologist, by revealing the origin and 

 nature of soils, and of the chemist, by discovering the compo- 

 nent ingredients of soils, manures, plants and animals, and their 

 mutual relations to, and combinations with, one another, and by 

 showing somewhat of the laws which govern the silent and oth- 

 erwise unobserved processes of nature which result in growth 

 and health, or the lack of them — in other words, in profit or 

 loss — have made contributions of great value. 



Agricultural chemistry is as yet in its infancy, yet from its very 

 t)eginuing, efforts have been made to determine from the result 

 •of chemical analyses of soils.^ the degree of their fertility, and of 



