284 History of the English Landed Interest. 



agreeable to the Practice they have seen, and the old beaten Eoad they 

 have been bred up in stands them in lieu of Reason. 



" On the other hand, Philosophers often want the Experience of the 

 Gardener ; many of them forge Systems in the Air, upon which they 

 build abundance of specious Reasonings, but have nothing solid in them, 

 because they are not founded upon the true Basis of natural knowledge 

 which is Experience ; it is therefore no wonder if many of those specula- 

 tive systems fall into Mistakes. We may compare them to enchanted 

 Castles founded upon Magick, which have nothing real in them, and 

 vanish in Smoak, in the very instant when we should admire their 

 Beauties." 



True enough was every word of this. From the days of Dr. 

 Agricola to those of Liebig, Practice has called on Theory for 

 assistance, and failed because in the very action of calling 

 there lurked the seeds of failure. When at length Practice 

 joined hands with Theory, and Gilbert and Lawes employed 

 the services of both, a beneficial influence henceforth fertilised 

 the soil and eased the labour of the husbandman. Let us 

 then close this book of Dr. Agricola's, for it would be useless to 

 seek further in a " system forged in the air " for any practic- 

 able information on vegetable life ; but, at the same time, let 

 us render both to him and to Bradley the praise which all 

 pioneers of a new science deserve of posterity, even though 

 their best efforts resulted in temporary disaster to the cause 

 they sought to serve. 



There was one circumstance in the manner both Agricola 

 and Bradley handled their subject which was worthy of 

 imitation by all specialists. To discuss plant life as though it 

 were human, to treat of the birth, the life, the distempers, and 

 the death of trees, was to bestow upon the sciences of botany 

 and arboriculture that reverence which all teachers should feel 

 for the objects in which they are specially interested. 



Dr. Agricola carried his enthusiasm beyond . the bounds of 

 sober reason when he spoke, not only of the possible resurrec- 

 tion of trees from their ashes, but their ultimate destination in 

 paradise. Still, the idea that there is some immortal germ in 

 the vegetable economy answering to the soul in ourselves, con- 

 tained amidst all its grotesque extravagance the true secret of 

 germination. It had, too, the glamour of classical precedent. 



