44 



slum of the thinking fliculty, — be specially true to this 

 second stage of agricultural advancement, — the stage of 

 patient, various experiment, and exact registration. Hold 

 up steady lights over your own path, and your children's. 

 Ecmember the distinction between theory and science. 

 Theory infers from a single fact, or a few facts, and fills 

 out the deficit with a guess. Science requires a broader 

 base for its induction, and facts enough to justify the af- 

 firmation of a law. What we want to come at, in Nature, 

 are her laws, not stopping with sporadic and fragmentary 

 phenomena. What we want of the separate phenomena, 

 is to marshal and compare them, and so make them ancil- 

 lary to conclusions. Interrogate Nature, then. Besiege 

 her with all manner of curiosity. Pound, and push, and 

 caress, and entreat, and importune her, till you wrench 

 her secret from her bosom. It is to incite our faculties, 

 that obscurity veils so many of her treasures. 



To this end, that he may be his own professor, scholar, 

 secretary, and reporter, let every farmer have as complete 

 an apparatus as he can afford, for conducting his examina- 

 tions, and nice admeasurements. Then let him enter his 

 daily record, wdth special respect for arithmetic. Let him 

 keep a running debt and credit account with every acre of 

 his land, as much as with his blacksmith and grocer, and 

 post his books. This will sharpen his wits, double his 

 relish,, and shed a steady intellectual irradiation through 

 his whole employment. 



Then, in addition, there ought to be some national pub- 

 lication, emanating from an agricultural department in the 

 government, where nothing should be included but reliable 

 results, collected from the entire survey of facts, somewhat 

 like tlic Philosophical Transactions of a Royal Academy, 

 only made up more directly from the sources of practical 

 life. 



I must not leave speaking of the relation of the farmer 



