OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENT. 3 



different processes of culture. This man has for years had a 

 monopoly of the Boston market and the neighboring towns and 

 cities for a radius of many miles. We', all of us, can readily 

 call to mind those among our farming acquaintances who excel 

 in sonic particular crop ; it may be early potatoes, onions, 

 squashes or cabbages ; know that for every effect there is a 

 cause, and if with you, soil, value of manure and market 

 conveniences are about the same, it will very likely pay on 

 your land as well as on his ; and while experimenting for this 

 end who can say you may not discover a better way ? The 

 miner prospecting for silver sometimes finds gold, 



There are whole communities who have a settled belief that 

 they cannot raise crops which are successfully raised in other 

 communities where the natural conditions are the same ; often- 

 times intelligent experiment only is needed to bridge the chasm. 

 I have in mind a community in which, not many years ago, the 

 field culture of the onion was unknown. The farmers labored 

 under an incubus in the belief that they were not adapted to 

 their locality. By and by a sturdy old fellow came along, and 

 insisted upon it that on such a soil he could and he would raise 

 " hingyuns." The prevalent belief was brought to bear upon 

 him ; he was told that the thing was impracticable : but he was 

 bound to try the experiment, and he succeeded. Now that 

 small township devotes in the vicinity of seventy acres annually 

 to the cultivation of this — the best paying cash crop put into its 

 soil. Many of us can call to mind localities where the 

 autumnal Marrow Squash and other varieties have had and 

 are having a hard time of it, simply because a few more 

 observers and experimenters of the right stamp are wanted in 

 those localities. There was a time when the cabbage was never 

 permitted to stray beyond the lowest tillage land ; now it 

 displays acres of its blue bloom on the highest corn land ; 

 experiment has carried it there. 



The specific knowledge yet to be acquired relative to the 

 instincts of the vegetable kingdom, and the connection which 

 exists between the effects we daily witness and the causes which 

 produce them, is, I have reason to believe, but little understood. 

 For every result there must be an adequate cause; I would that 

 every farmer realized this. Whether the experiments necessary 

 to determine these causes will pay pecuniarily you must be 



