244 PRINCIPLES OF GARDENING. [CH. VIII. 



The reason of this deficiency of benefit is not dif- 

 ficult of detection. 



Common experience teaches us that diligence 

 and perseverance, directed by judgment, are the 

 essential preliminaries of success : and these are 

 more particularly requisite in examining, in search- 

 ing for the causes of the diseases and decay of 

 vegetables, because we have fewer guides, less as- 

 sistance from the vegetable affected, than Tve have 

 from a diseased animal ; fewer symptoms marking 

 the commencement, or seat of the evil. Yet where 

 is the cultivator who ever took a fraction of the 

 care, or a decimal of the attention to discover the 

 cause, progress, or remedy of one disease, some- 

 times bringing destruction upon his harvests, as he 

 does to detect the disorder or discover the panacea 

 for some miserable pig ? 



The subject is one beset mth difficulties, but it 

 is commensurately important. Difficulty, however, is 

 veiy distinct from impossiljility ; and the importance 

 of the research is a stimulus to exertion. Human 

 knowledge being acquired by observation and expe- 

 rience, by conversing mth the things about us,, 

 —that is by noticing them attentively, and re- 

 cording and reflecting upon the facts they reveal, — 

 eveiy gardener should do this, especially whenever 

 he finds his crops diseased. He should record from 

 what soil he obtained his seed ; how and in what 



