THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



519 



if this is true, certainly it does seem more logical to 

 learn a truth before we attempt to apply it. "Would 

 people exercise a little more patience in endeavouring 

 to know what they wisi) to do before they seek to do it, 

 the world would be troubled with fewer false conclu- 

 sions, and the confusion that accompanies them. 



Besides, it seems natural to suppose that the compre- 

 hension is so enlarged and quickened by such discipline, 

 that, in dealing practically with the elements surround- 

 ing it, it is enabled, by the light of previous knowledge, 

 to combine, and classify, and apply them with wonderful 

 celerity. The details of farming management are very 

 important. We do not underrate them, because we 

 know that the farmer's profits are extracted from the 

 hundred little sources, implying an amazingly quick 

 supervision on his part, rather than from any one great 

 source. Still we do maintain that the well-informed 

 and active mind is better fitted to comprehend and deal 

 with these petty details, even in many ways we need not 

 stop here to explain, than is a man not so previously 

 trained, all things being otherwise equal. 



The reverse of this would never do. Two years upon 

 a farm before such collegiate course would just unfit 

 young men for study ; but such study would not unfit 

 them for practice, any more than it does the surgeon or 

 the soldier. What is the meaning of this loud cry for 

 increased education, if it does not mean that educa- 

 tion is so to inform his mind and quicken his perception 

 as to make him a better labourer, a better artisan, in 

 fact, a better man of business ? Yet our young men are 

 trained in a way that contradict the reachings of sound 

 sense. Without any knowledge of the varied and compli- 

 cated relations of the materials with which they have to 

 deal, they are pushed precipitately into close connection 

 with them, and expected to raise a building towards the 

 making of whose bricks they have been refused the 

 straw. 



It seems very absurd to superintend the process of 

 nutrition in ignorance of the principles of nutrition, or 

 in absence of an acquaintance with the theory of culliva- 

 lion to undertake its practice. And yet this is done 

 every day ; and men seem disposed to purchase their 

 experience in the dearest market to be found. 



Those who give a thought to middle-class agricultural 

 education, will at once perceive that it is easier to advo- 

 cate the establishment of Agricultural Colleges than to 

 establish them. Those who have played with such 

 visions upon their bed, and arisen to transform them to 

 fact, have knocked their shins against the difficulties of 

 the undertaking, and retreated with a zeal as eager to 

 recede as it was to advance. 



The belief as yet in scientific training for those who 

 are to farm the land of England, has but a very shallow 

 root-grasp in any part of the country, while in some 

 districts it has never been introduced. When we think 

 of what will have to be accomplished before it becomes 

 general, or at least so general as to produce a college 

 system, a most profound faith in the good sterling sense 

 of our generation is necessary. 



Well, thft produce of our fields is not stored at once ; 

 sheaf by sheaf the stack is formed. And so it is with 



all great undertakings, little by little, till the whole 

 stands erect in its perfectitude. Men will not be pushed 

 beyond the measure of their light. It is of no use 

 attempting to make an Englishman, and particularly a 

 stout British yeoman, consent to what he does not 

 understand ; though he is Jewed now and then by cattle 

 foods and artificial manures. We mean, however, that, 

 as a rule, the class in question will not advance beyond 

 the turning that is illuminated by their own knowledge. 

 But though they are cautious they are spirited, and once 

 shown the right way, they do not hesitate to follow in 

 it. It is not long since two young men embarked their 

 capital and talent in what was considered a very 

 hazardous scheme, for the manufacture of steam portable 

 thrashing machines. They were cautioned in vain by 

 the prudent. To them, however, had appeared signs 

 unmistakeable of an approaching revolution in farm 

 machinery. They perceived the first movements of a 

 growing demand which, by a prompt and large supply, 

 they hoped to increase and to satisfy. They gave a 

 credit to the class they sought to serve for an enterprise 

 which the world generally thought them not to possess, 

 and are now reaping the reward of their discerning 

 faith. So great was the incredulity of other makers 

 as to the amount of business they were doing, that 

 several years after their commencement they were 

 obliged to authenticate their annual statements by the 

 appended names and addresses of their customers. 

 And who would have thought that besides one firm pro- 

 ducing one engine per day, numberless other manufac- 

 turers would be set working to keep pace with the 

 demand .'' 



And so it will be with middle-class scientific educa- 

 tion. The farmers of this country only require to have 

 the notion set before them, that scientific education is 

 absolutely required to fit the rising generation to fulfil 

 their duties with profit to themselves and their country, 

 and to become thoroughly possessed by it, and then we 

 shall behold a bold and intelligent acknowledgment 

 given to the claims of agricultural colleges upon their 

 support. Public opinion is awakening to this necessity. 

 Chemistry and geology and physiology are daily show- 

 ing their very intimate alliance with the cultivation of 

 land, the growth of cereal and other crops, and the 

 breeding and feeding of all sorts of live stock. Impres- 

 sion after impression is made upon even the slow- 

 est minds, and the dullest have long come to knew that 

 there are such elements to be dealt with as nitrogen, and 

 carbon and oxygen, and that these are bona fide ele- 

 ments of profit and loss, and that the man who knows 

 most about them is most likely to handle them to advan- 

 tage. The step from this initial state of progress to that 

 state of opinion which owns the value of systematic 

 scientific training, and seeks to obtain it, may be a long 

 one, but one, if we judge by the advancement that has 

 taken place within the last fifteen years, which r/ill not 

 be long postponed. 



The Emperor Julian remarked that a m;in who 

 derives experience from his own habits, ratlier than 

 the principles of some great theory, is like an empiric, 

 who by practice may cure one or two diseases with 



