1857.] Agriadtural Experiments. 441 



deep at the outlet" was the modest extent of my demand ; and there 

 I stood, watchingthe tiles thrown in pell-mell to a depth of eighteen 

 inches, which I was given to understand was " about two feet deep," 

 with as cool an indifference to the other foot, as if Two and Three 

 had been recently determined to mean the same thing. 



"But I must have it three feet deep !" 



*' Oh it's no use : it '11 never drain so deep as that through this 

 here clay !" * 



** But I tell you it must be ! There can be no fall without it." 



"Well, I've been a-draining this forty year, and I ought to know 

 summut about it." 



From that moment I date my experience in the trials and troubles 

 of farming ; at that instant my eyes began to open to the true 

 meaning of those " practical difficulties " which the uninitiated 

 laugh at because they have never encountered them ; and which the 

 man of science despises who has said to stream, water, and machin- 

 ery, " do this," and they do it, but has never known what it is to 

 try and guid out of the old track, a mind that has run in the same 

 rut " this forty year and more." 



Agricultural Experiments. — A great many valuable hints and 

 suggestions for practice may be learned from agricultural papers. It 

 is not uncommon to hear farmers remark that they have derived more 

 pecuniary advantage from a single article than the price of the paper 

 for many years. But to prevent disappointment, farmers must always 

 use their judgment; circumstances vary so greatly that what is 

 highly beneficial in one case may be ruinous in another. Great mis- 

 chief is done by looseness, carelessness, or partiality in reporting 

 experiments; a single trial of a crop sown by guess-work, cultivated 

 at random, and measured by a hasty glance of the eye, is often con- 

 sidered decisive by the inaccurate farmer. He sees a little, presumes 

 a great deal, and jumps at a conclusion, when perhaps if he had taken 

 the twenty other operating causes into the account there would have 

 been no conclusion at all. Opinions are sometimes formed, and facts 

 afterwards sought to support them ; the report of such facts is not 

 worth the ink to record them. It is no wonder that some are dis- 

 heartened by these, from all trials. 



