314 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



wliilc yours, if fully reported, is a successful cxperimcut; and that 

 is just the difference between the two. 



We shall find that almost all the experiments thus far performed 

 in this country, at least most of those communicated to our agri- 

 cultural papers, have resulted in equivocal answers. -You cannot 

 tell whether the answer is yes or no. Without going any further 

 back in your memory than last winter, let me call your attention 

 to the discussion which followed a lecture upon the diseases of 

 plants. The question of fungoid diseases came up — the diseases 

 produced in plants by fungi. It is a Avell known fiict, that the 

 little spores which produce these fungoid diseases are killed at a 

 certain temperature. Soaking the seed in hot water will destroy 

 the vitality of the fungus, but not the vitality of the seed. Then 

 the question Avas asked, by a gentleman well known to you, 

 " What is the temperature at which the vitality of the seed itself 

 may be destroyed ?" AVithout following the line wliich was carried 

 out in the discussion then, let me call your attention to one single 

 point which was brought out in regard to the treatment of the 

 fungus on corn. One gentleman said he had always had good corn 

 crops, because he had treated his seed with boiling water, and he 

 thought, also, he Avas able to harvest his corn a little earlier; of 

 rather, I slu)uld say, he was able to get his crop, which was sweet 

 corn, to the corn factories a little earlier than his neighbors. A 

 gentleman who Avas present said his experience did not agree with 

 that. He said that he tried an experiment like that three or four 

 years ago ; he soaked his seed-corn in boiling water, and had been 

 waiting for it to come up ever since. Now, how can you account 

 for these discordant results ? Ilere the corn and the boiling Avater 

 were the same in both cases; in one case, a largo crop had been 

 obtained, but in the otlicr the corn had not come up in three years. 

 The same experiments Avcre made, and the results wore discordant. 

 And so it is Avith nearly all the agricultural experiments in this 

 country, and I do not wonder that farmers are disgusted Avith most 

 agricultural cxperiinonts, as they have been thus far conducted. I 

 have no doubt if I should call upon you ior your experiments, you 

 would say the results have been something like this. You found 

 in some agricultural paper, or in the agricultural columns of a 

 political or religious paper, some exj)eriraent described in such a 

 graceful and fascinating style that you thought you AA'^ould like to 

 try it, and you did try it, with conditions the same or nearly the 

 same as Avere there detailed, and you found your results did not 



