324 BOARD OF AGRICULTUllE 



factory manner, to the problems of agriculture. But to our 

 Agricultural College we may look with much hope for scientific 

 experiments and practical results ; and I think, as my friend 

 Scamman has suggested, that there are a great many experiments 

 and observations which we may make by careful annotations of 

 soil, and such other auxiliary means as wc may bring to our aid, 

 and we may thus contribute in aid of that which is scientific and 

 fixed. 



But there is one great obstacle in the way, which must be 

 removed before either of these things can be done. I wish it did 

 not exist ; it surely ought not to exist. How many men have we 

 in our community who avoid a county agricultural association, 

 who are hardly willing to open a book and read the results of 

 agricultural experiments, either scientific or practical ? How 

 many men there are in the community who find fault with a man 

 because he is a "fancy farmer," as they choose to call him? 

 Well, sir, if a man be nothing but a " fancy farmer," if he is able 

 to make scientific experiments and produce scientific results, and 

 if he shall give to the community an improved vegetable, or im- 

 proved stock, which is nothing but the result, if you please, of 

 fanciful experiments, do our people remember how very much 

 good that man may do ? Apply that principle to stock raising. 

 How many hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone into the 

 "pockets of the farmers of Maine by the efforts of a single man in 

 our State, who within a few years has so much improved the breed 

 of horses ? I need not name the man, because every one who 

 liears the suggestion knows to whom I refer. Yet you may say 

 that man is a "horse man," a "fancy horse man," perhaps. 

 Suppose he is a " fancy horse man," if he gives us a breed of 

 horses tluit are worth twice as much as the animals we have 

 produced heretofore, 1 ask you if tluxt man is not a public bene- 

 factor? Most assuredly he is. And so of experiments in the 

 production of new varieties of vegetables, even though they arc 

 not scientific experiments. 1 am dividing experiments into two 

 kinds, because 1 am free to admit that we have neither the time, 

 nor the knowledge, nor the means, to make just such experiments 

 as Prof. Goodale has told us are necessary for the advancement of 

 scientific agriculture, and which I know as well as he docs are 

 neOessary. But outside of these, there is a class of practical 

 experiments which we may make which will aid us along the road 

 of progress in the art, and, I might say, the science of agriculture. 



