290 HENRY HILL GOODELL 



and the drawing of ploughs and harrows by the tails of 

 the unfortunate horses in the eighteenth century, to the drill- 

 ing and the sulky or steam-traction ploughs of the present 

 age, is indeed a great advance. The patient workers in this 

 our chosen field have not been many, at least till we come 

 down to our own time; and too often, alas, to quote the 

 spirited words of another, "like the ancient alchemists have 

 starved in the midst of their golden dreams. Tusser, teach- 

 ing thrift, never throve. Gabriel Platter, the corn-seller, who 

 boasted that he could raise thirty bushels of wheat to the 

 acre, died in the streets for want of bread. Jethro Tull, 

 instead of gaining an estate, lost two by his horse-hoeing 

 husbandry. Arthur Young failed twice in farm management 

 before he began his invaluable tours of observation"; and 

 Bakewell, irrigating his meadows and raising four crops in a 

 single season, was compelled to give up his farm, and died 

 in comparative poverty. 



But each one has lifted the veil a little higher and left 

 the way a little clearer for those who followed him. Tull, 

 experimenting in drilling and horse-hoeing husbandry, all 

 but divined the mysteries of chemistry, which then, as 

 applied to agriculture, were undiscovered. Thaer, applying 

 the natural sciences to agriculture, established a system 

 of farm accounts, placing values on the various farm ma- 

 terials, and introduced the great principle of rotation of 

 crops. Bakewell, discovering the principle of selection in 

 breeding, raised to the highest pitch of perfection his flock 

 of Leicesters. Stock husbandry rose at a single bound, and 

 henceforth the "promiscuous union of nobody's son with 

 everybody's daughter" was at an end. Davy, by his chem- 

 ical analyses and explanations of agricultural processes, laid 



