HINDRANCES AND HELPS. 271 



that we have put no wider gap between ourselves 

 and those twilight times. The gap is, however, fai . 

 wider than it seems ; for while those old gentlemen 

 made good hits in their practice, they rarely an 

 nounced a principle on which good cultivation de 

 pended, but they were egregiously at fault. The 

 centuries, with their science and added experience, 

 have solved the reasons of things ; not all of them, 

 indeed as Liebig in his last book needlessly tells us 

 but enough of them to enlist a more intelligent 

 method of culture. The ancients recommended a 

 rule of practice, because it had succeeded in a score 

 or a hundred of trials ; but if some day it failed, they 

 must have groped considerably in the dark for a 

 cause. We lay down a rule of practice in obedience 

 to certain clearly determined natural laws ; and if 

 failure meets us, we know it is due not to falsity of 

 the laws but to some one of a rather wide circle 

 of contingencies, not foreseen or provided against. 

 And it is the due adjustment and measurement of 

 precisely this circle of contingencies whether be 

 longing to weeds, weather, or markets which most 

 thoroughly tests the sagacity of the modern farmer. 



This sagacity is of far larger service, than T think 

 scientific farmers are willing to admit. Over and over 

 it happens that some uncouth, raw, strapping, unread 

 man succeeds, year after year, in making crops which 



