228 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Evening Session. 



The Board met at 7J P. M., to listen to the following lecture 

 upon 



WHAT MODERN SOCIETY OWES TO SCIENCE. 

 By Dr. George B. Loring. 



Gentlemen: — The annual meeting of the Massachusetts 

 Board of Agriculture, for public lectures and discussions, is now 

 about to close. It has been a session of unusual interest to 

 all who are interested in agriculture, illustrating the deep desire 

 of those who pursue this calling in large measure or in small, 

 to ascertain the best laws by which they can be guided. The 

 inquiries and deliberations of this Board mean an attempt to 

 introduce the best theory and practice into an occupation, 

 which, while lying at the foundation of all industry, has too 

 generally been conducted without well defined rules, and has 

 puzzled the scientific investigator by its successful crudities, 

 more than the deepest problems have by their intricacy. The 

 success of agriculture hitherto has been owing more to the 

 fidelity of nature, and to her ready response to every reasonable 

 call, than to fixed principles and accurate systems. The strong 

 arm, the steady head, and the industrious purpose have pre- 

 vailed. But when the worn and weary student has left his 

 closet for the field, carrying with him none of those instinctive 

 faculties which are born and cultivated beneath the open sky, 

 he has been doomed to disappointment. When Burke with- 

 drew from his brilliant and dazzling career, in which he had 

 astonished even the genius of his time, and had secured for 

 himself an immortal name among the greatest, and had retired 

 to his farm at Beaconsfield, he found his eye too dull, and his 

 thought too vague, and his judgment too narrow, for the sudden 

 and unexpected emergencies which met him every day and 

 everywhere on his farm. The weapons which he had used in 

 his contests with his felbw-men, were useless when brought 

 into a struggle with those obstacles which attend the changing 

 seasons, and all the various conditions of soil and climate. 

 His statesmanship was a brilliant success, his farming was a 

 painful failure. And from his day to our own the disciplined 

 mind has looked with envy upon the success which has attended 

 the exercise of keen and quick perception, unerring judgment, 



