Essay on Agrladlure as a Science. 265 



(which I much doubt,) the picture he draws is a necessary result 

 of his own statements, from which we can infer, 



That in his time projectors were wihi and speculative — prac- 

 tical agriculturists not quite so averse from innovations as at 

 present, but equally tenacious of their practices when once 

 adopted. 



The whole mischief (admitting it to have existed) obvlouslv 

 arose from Swift's having omitted a personage in the agricultural 

 drama, forming a coalition between the wild theorist and 

 positive jjractical farmer ; omitting the intermediate personage, 

 the experimentalist, who would have protected them both from 

 mischief, suppressing the extravagancies of the projector, and 

 paying everv attention to his suggestions that bore the test of 

 experiment; and suffering nothing to pass into practice, which 

 did not afford a reasonable prospect of advancing the agricul- 

 tural science, and multiplying the benefits derived from it. 



Let us try two or three agricultural questions by the test of 

 the arrangement I have suggested, and we shall see what pro- 

 gress the science has made without them, and to what state it 

 probably would have advanced, had they been adopted. 



I commence with the gramina, a branch of agriculture to wliich 

 for twenty years I have paid considerable attention, and which, 

 for these last ten, I have considered as my j^eculiar department. 



The great importance to us of grassy produce is obvious ; 

 and nature has been very liberal to us in that line — slie has given 

 us (as botanists tell us) one hundred and fifty varieties to supplv 

 the wants of our cattle, and to exercise our ingenuity in disco- 

 vering their uses and developing their properties. 



What use has the agriculturist derived from this co])ious stock? 

 But a solitary one. — He has discovered that rye grass wiien sown 

 with clover makes an excellent mixture; into further practice 

 his knowledge does not carry him: and yet in dogged confidence 

 he turns a deaf ear to any suggestions for increasing his stock 

 of grasses, or advancing his knowledge on their subject. 



What would probably have been the result, had agriculture 

 been distributed into the three departments I have supposed, 

 and the gramina had passed through the hands of the thedrist 

 and experimentalist, before they reached the practical farmer? 



The theorist, speculating n priori^ would have considered what 

 were the properties most likely to give value to grass, and by 

 which it would be made most useful to our cattle: he would 

 j>oon have perceived that three were prominent — earliness — lux- 

 uriance — and quick powers of reproduction after being cut or 

 eaten down ; he would have desired the experimentalist to make 

 many small plots, and to compare the different grasses in these 

 several points of view. 



The 



