PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE. 343 



which you plow, which has a certain proportion of parts, which 

 has been studied out carefully, on the principles of the inclined 

 plane, the lever or the wedge, so that the soil may be properly 

 turned and broken, and all its parts brought under the chemical 

 influences that best fit it for the crop. Is not that mechanics 

 applied ? Who thinks now of inventing a plow without stopping 

 to make it conform to scientific principles ? You may take a knot, 

 fasten it to the horns of an ox, drag it across a field, and call it a 

 plowing, but it is not ; it is only a very rude experiment. When, 

 however, you apply the natural principles which may be applied 

 by the study of physics to the machine we call a plow, then 

 mechanics may be applied to tillage. 



Secondly, hydrodynamics — the science of water in motion or at 

 rest, that is, the power of water, — may be applied to draining the 

 soil. When we come to investigate and understand the whole 

 matter of the laws of drainage, and apply them to the improve- 

 ment of unproductive soil, we make it bring forth many fold more 

 than it did before. But plain farmers, without studying natural 

 philosophy, do that to a certain extent exactly as I have been tell- 

 ing you. That is one of the empirical experiments which every 

 common-sense man, leaping over all the deductions of logic, arrives 

 at almost intuitively. 



We admit that soils may be improved by the application of 

 mechanics, and by chemistry. Suppose, on the other hand, we 

 look at the productions of the soil,— how may they be improved ? 

 Take plants, for instance. You commence with crossing the differ- 

 ent varieties that you may thus experiment with. You take into 

 account the laws of vegetable growth and production ; you may 

 make shrewd guesses without studying up all these, and bring • 

 about very important changes, and reach very desirable results. 

 You may do much better if you are able to go to your consulting 

 friend and receive the exact hints you want. So also with reference 

 to zoology. Any experiments 3^ou have to make there, you will 

 be more likely to succeed in if to your own native common sense, 

 sufficient to conduct you aright in ninety-nine cases out of a hun- 

 dred, you add the simple hint that you can get from a man who has 

 patiently studied the whole matter, both practically, as you have 

 done, and scientifically, as he may do at the Agricultural College. 



It was my fortune to be in college at the same time with one of 

 the learned Professors of the Agricultural College. I know very 

 well from the reputation he had then for constant application to 



