FARM THE TEST OF THEORY. 73 



toll us that you develop only such properties as are inherent in 

 the plant, as are inherent in the nature of the animal, and that 

 you add nothing essentially new, then that doctrine is at once 

 repudiated. You see, therefore, that some of the most important 

 problems that enter into the decision of questions of abstract 

 science are left for you to work out. Only let the farmer, when 

 he goes to work to examine his proofs, do it with a particular 

 knowledge of what he is to report upon in reference to this 

 question. If he tells us that he can raise wheat out of oats, 

 that he can raise corn out of rice, that he can raise hemp out of 

 nettles, then he will have shown just what the doctrine of trans- 

 mutation assumes ; but if, on the contrary, the farmer tells us 

 that he is ever moving in a circle, which is returning upon itself, 

 and that within that circle there is, in one case, nothing but 

 apples, in another nothing but pears, in another nothing but 

 cherries, in another nothing but grapes, in another nothing but 

 wheat, in another nothing but corn, however great the varieties 

 of corn, the varieties of apples, and so on, may be, then, he tells 

 us that he does not make species, but only unfolds to the utmost 

 all their inherent properties. 



You see, then, how important it is for us scientific men to 

 have the aid of this powerful machinery, which has worked for 

 ages past, and is to work for ages to come, as the generations of 

 men need food and protection. From that machinery we are 

 going to receive all the information we need to test this ques- 

 tion, and it is not difficult to see how it is going to be settled ; 

 because I do not suppose that by any particular witchcraft agri- 

 culture is to do in the next five years very materially different 

 things from what it has done before. I do not think that in 

 order to support a chance doctrine, which has for the moment 

 bewildered the imagination of otherwise sober observers, or to 

 gratify them we shall have to sow, hereafter, one thing in order 

 to reap another. And yet how long has this practice of agricul- 

 ture been going on ? So long that nobody really knows the 

 origin of these cultivated plants. It is lost in the darkness of 

 past ages. "We do not know them in a wild state. They were 

 probably originated with a view of being at once the companions 

 and supporters of man ; and so well has that design been carried 

 out, that man, in trying to find them, does not recognize them 

 among the wild plants. I take it we have there one of those 



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