6 EXPEKIMENT STATION KECORD. 



to avoid the dogmatic introduction or support of untested theories, 

 and the narrow-minded ignorance which entertains the possibility of 

 making any one discovery which shall remedy the failings of the 

 present practice," — good advice for the present day, and still needed. 



In an article in the Country Gentleman in 1854, he declared that 

 " what agriculture most needs is the establishment of its doctrines — 

 not the proposition of fancies, or of facts which hold good for this or 

 that township, but the evolution of a general theory applicable every- 

 where. . . . The basis of doctrine will not rapidly unfold itself. It 

 must be unfolded. If agriculturists would know, they must inquire. 

 The knowledge they need belongs not to revelation but to science, 

 and it must be sought for as the philosopher seeks other scientific 

 truth." Some of this sounds quite modern. As he well realized, the 

 method and essentials of agricultural investigation are only different 

 in land and not in nature from those in other branches of inquiry. 

 We have had to learn this, and the expensive lesson that short cuts 

 are disappointing. Much of the purely local testing and experiment- 

 ing is now recognized as extension instead of investigation. 



In 1856 Dr. Johnson delivered a lecture before the New York State 

 Agricultural Society, on The Relations Which Exist Between Sci- 

 ence and Agriculture. This is a truly remarkable address, which 

 deserves to be preserved but had been largely lost to the present gen- 

 eration until brought to light by the publication of this volume. It 

 foreshadowed the spirit as well as the method and the position of the 

 agricultural experiment station. 



In this address he explained why up to that time agriculture had 

 not profited from the applications of science to the same extent that 

 the manufacturing arts had. Aside from the inherent difficulty of 

 the subject, one reason was " the lamentable circumstance that our 

 agriculture is so barren of facts — I mean that kind of facts which 

 only can form the foundation of science ; I mean complete facts. . . . 

 The first thing to be done is to multiply facts." And he outlined the 

 way in which these scientific facts were to be acquired, in a manner 

 so sound and clear that they are worth quoting at this time. 



The establishment of facts, he explained, " is accomplished by ob- 

 servation and experiment. Ordinary observation takes cognizance 

 of what transpires in the usual course of nature. Experiment is that 

 refined instrument of modern research which interferes with the ordi- 

 narj^ course of nature, and compels her to unusual manifestations." 

 But experiment requires skill and direction, and keenness of percep- 

 tion. The great secret, as he said, is to know where to look. " The 

 empiric experiments at a venture, without any probability to guide 

 him. His haphazard trials often reveal new facts, but he rarely con- 

 tributes largely to scientific progress because he makes haphazard 

 experiments, because he does not reason. 



