PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE. 335 



applies it in all possible conditions ; it is extending the principle. 

 The other is reasoning in comprehension. We take all the con- 

 ditions and do with them as a mass whatever wo please, and 

 evolve such results as we can. And right here, gentlemen, is the 

 line to be drawn between us as experimental, scientific farmers, 

 and as practical farmers. 



Now, I undertake to say that my friend who spoke in the morn- 

 ing (Prof. Goodale) will perfectly agree with me in this. Most 

 farmers will take the great mass of the conditions that are pre- 

 sented to them in the gross, and experiment to good purpose. 

 There is no intention, either on the part of myself or of my friend 

 who spoke before me, "to throw a wet blanket" upon that kind 

 of experiment, or, indeed, upon any which can be undertaken 

 properly. The farmer, then, we say, will always find a field open 

 to him for successful experiments of this sort. 



Let me illustrate by an example. I will take the ox. Look at 

 him in a practical way now. An ox is nothing but a machine. He 

 is a machine to accomplish what? The transformation of grass and 

 grain and roots, it may be, into fat and flesh, hides and horns, and 

 all the other available products that you can get from him, and 

 lastly, to give up to you what you cannot use as food, as bone 

 phosphate, etc. You are going to use him as a machine. Now, 

 as a scientific experimenter you would begin and say, "Oxen are 

 composed of so much phosphate of lime, so much hydrogen, a 

 certain amount of oxygen and nitrogen, a little iron, a little chlo- 

 ride of sodium, and several other constituents; I will put these 

 through certain cell' processes, by strictly mechanical and chemical 

 laws, and ultimately, if .nothing oppose, there will be a perfect ox 

 evolved." As a theorist, you will set yourself to tracing each 

 element that enters into the structure of the ox through all its 

 changes, until it is fixed in the tissues. That, for science, is a very 

 important work, when it can be done. That will enable some one 

 to put his finger upon the seeds of disease and perfect a system of 

 rational medicine. But then, the farmer, and all those dependent 

 on him would starve if everybody went to work in that way. Let 

 us see what else we would do. Somebody noticed that the ox 

 flourished very much better if well fed ; and somebody else ob- 

 served tliat he flourished much better when sheltered ; and there- 

 fore the barn was built, and filled with hay and grain, and the ox, 

 with all the conditions to transform grass and hay and grain into 

 flesh was put into it ; and the experiment went on there in the 



