10 



that there is no absolute verity outside of the mathe- 

 matics, or rather that mathematical truths are the only 

 truths that can be certainly demonstrated; and hence the 

 application of the term, " exact science, " to the mathe- 

 matics. But the observation is entitled to little weight; 

 for there are truths in all the sciences as capable of sat- 

 isfactory demonstration for all practical purposes as any 

 problemin geometry. Forthatdemonstration is sufficient 

 and may be safely acted upon, that leaves no room for a 

 reasonable doubt. Hence we properly speak of scientific 

 agriculture, meaning a cultivation of the earth in accor- 

 dance with indubitable principles discovered by science. 

 But a discovery of these principles involves deductions 

 from a vast body of facts that must be collected, studied, 

 analyzed and compared; and it is, perhaps, not going too 

 far to say that this could not be done before the dis- 

 covery of the art of printing. With the same propri- 

 ety we speak of mechanical science, or that body of 

 learning that enables the inventor to invent and the 

 artisan to work in obedience to fixed and immutable 

 laws of nature. 



What I have just said will suggest some of the reasons 

 for the tardy growth of agricultural science, but there 

 are many others to be taken into the account. The more 

 important of them are admirably stated by Hoskyns 

 in his able introductory essay to Morton's Cyclopedia 

 of Agriculture, and I feel that I cannot do better than 

 to briefly repeat the substance of some of his observa- 

 tions : 



"Applauded," says he, "from the earliest chronicled 

 ages as the first of arts, agriculture had reached our own, 

 perhaps the least advanced of any, by direct scientific in- 

 vestigation. " Laudatur, et alget," the terse expression of 

 the satirist, might be taken as its truest motto, and its 

 antiquity and importance be asserted in no very triumph- 

 ant tone; for if both be, as they always have been, ad- 

 mitted, its history compared with that of other arts from 



