



1856.] Our Uxpenmenfal Farm — Anatic Seeds. 171 



are, and aim to be, with a Model Farm, devoted to scientific experiment, 

 with a full corps of scientific men, devoted to the systematic prosecution 

 of those experiments, with laboratory and apparatus for testing all prob- 

 lems that those experiments present, we can be assured of proceeding 

 onward by the light of science to the goal of practical truth. And even 

 when our experiments fail to produce profitable results, the failure itself 

 becomes a source of gratification, inasmuch as it is a source of information 

 that may save others from loss, where loss might prove ruinous. ^Yith 

 us, failures are expected ; yet, those failures afil)rd us a kind of negative 

 demonstration as reliable for evidence in a scientific pursuit as are our 

 afiirmative conclusions, because it oftiraes becomes as important for farm- 

 ers to know what can not be done, as to be informed of what can. Indeed, 

 it frequently occurs, that as to science and scientific truth, we know what 

 is right by discovering what is wrong. Hence, we are continually taught 

 to succeed by failures in our attempts at success. By learning where 

 and how we diverged into error that led on to failure, we learn to shun 

 the divergence, and thus make our way onward to truth. In fact, no 

 insignificant portion of all his knowledge, and much of the most valuable, 

 man has acquired from his mistakes. 



It is in this spirit of philosophy that our experiments are to be con- 

 ducted ; and, therefore, aiming more to demonstrate the real and the 

 practical, than to exhibit the fanciful and the ornamental. 



AVe have taken the libert}' to premise this much as matter introductory 

 to the Rev. Mr. Wilson's interesting communication, addressed to the 

 Principal of our Department of Agriculture, and which accompanied the 

 seeds sent : — It is as follows : 



HoMS, Syria, Dec, 22d— 1855. 



Mr. F. G. Gary — Dear Sir : Your request for some seeds of Syrian 

 produce came to hand some months since, and I have been waiting to 

 hear from you again in reference to the best mode of putting up the 

 package. The public posts are not very regular in winter, and if you 

 receive the package, it is of course desirable that it be in time for your 

 spring operations ; I therefore send them without further delay. Hence, 

 you will probably be disappointed in the arrangement of the package ; 

 but you will please bear in mind two facts — The first, being one set 

 down in the geographies, that Syria is a /m// civilized country; and the 

 second, that my location in the land is not the very best for collecting a 

 very extended variety. Eight years absence has made me a stranger to 

 the arts and sciences in the Miami Valley, and no doubt some of the 

 seeds sent will remind you of the story of sending ' figs to Athens.' But 



