PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE. 353 



or horses, and carefully save all the dressing, and no danger need 

 be apprehended. 



Prof. PECKHAii. A thought occurred to me during the discus- 

 sion in reference to experiments which has not been mentioned by 

 other speakers, which, perhaps, if stated, may serve as some en- 

 couragement to those present who have been thus engaged. 



We very often hear the wonderful progress of chemistry referred 

 to, and the development of agriculture which has been attained 

 in the last twenty-five or thirty years, by means of chemistry. 

 Now, very few persons, not engaged in chemical research, have 

 any idea of the vast number of experiments which prove utterly 

 futile to one which brought about the results anticipated or 

 sought. Every experimenter in chemistry has made huudi-eds, 

 and the older chemists have made thousands of experiments 

 which gave no results whatever, simply because the experimenter 

 did not have a clear idea, at first, of the object sought. So it 

 is in agricultural experiments. Many of them fail ; and if the 

 farmer is discouraged by the failure of his first experiments, and 

 stops there, he will never reach useful results. So, too, if some 

 of the greatest chemists now living had become discouraged at 

 the failure of their first experiments, they would have ended 

 their careers without being heard of, and the results whicli they 

 have obtained would never have been given to the world, unless 

 obtained by some other person, more courageous, more patient, 

 more persevering. 



The statement of this fact may encourage some of those persons 

 engaged in agricultural experiments, who may become faint- 

 hearted because one, two, ten or twenty of their experiments 

 proved useless or futile. You must not be afraid of being "left 

 out in the cold." 



Mr. Perley, Whether our friend Professor Brackett has put us 

 to bed in a wet sheet, or treated us to a dry blanket, matters little; 

 he has certainly given us a quieting dose, which has relieved our 

 nervousness, and when these meetings are over, we "empirical" 

 farmers can go home and try our experiments, and also learn from 

 the experiments of scientific professors, and become wiser men. 

 Let, then, those who have the ability pi'osecute their scientific 

 experiments ; let them teach us what they can in regard to the 

 processes we should pursue in agriculture ; let them make sugges- 

 tions which it may be prudent for us to follow. We will then try 

 those suggestions and prove what are good. We shall thus work 

 23 



