90 



QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 



Scientific 

 Agriculture 



Agricultural 

 JDevelopment 



Botany. 553. Q. Is botany strictly a science ? 



A. In general terms it is, but not altogether an exact one, as much, 

 must be taken upon the evidence of others, it being impossible for any 

 one man or any body of men to have seen and examined all of the one 

 hundred and fifty thousand species of known plants. In other sciences 

 the observations of the discoverer can be confirmed, but not always so in 

 botany. 



554. Q. Is agriculture or horticulture a study presenting much diver- 

 sity? 



A. No study, taken in a scientific aspect, covers so wide a field, or one 

 the limits of which are so impossible to attain, as all calculations are dis- 

 turbed by fluctuations in climatic or soil conditions. 



555. Q. Will the agricultural practice of the future be an improvement 

 on that of the past ? 



A. Certainly ; for the intelligent practice of agriculture is now guided 

 by science, and in the future it will be ruled by it. Unfortunately, but a 

 small proportion of agriculturists will possess scientific intelligence, and 

 consequently the practices and errors of the past will be continued by the 

 great majority. There will be three classes of agriculturists : the alto- 

 gether unscientific, the practical cultivator with some scientific attain- 

 ments, and the scientific theorist without practical experience or capacity 

 for making things pay. The agricultural experimental stations have 

 done more in the past twenty years to disseminate scientific knowledge of 

 the action of fertilizers, plant diseases and cures, injurious insects and 

 methods of destroying them, than any agency which ever existed. Agri- 

 culture is becoming scientific, but it can never be entirely so, as no 

 method or system can be depended upon to produce a fixed result, conse- 

 quent upon the uncertain efi'ect of meteorological happenings. No art 

 will call to its aid to interpret it so many scientific branches as agricul- 

 ture, but all that will never make it a perfect science, on account of the 

 unfixed quantity of heat and cold, rain or drought, the variations of 

 which defeat all calculations. 



556. Q. Can I do best by Autumn planting in the high lands of Texas 

 witli onion seed or sets ? 



A. Better plant sets, twelve bushels to the acre, in rows at fifteen 

 inches apart. Set out in November, they should mature for sale in 

 March. Seed drilled in October vpould probably be injured by frost. 

 Drilled Seed. 557. Q. Is it best when sowing turnip seed to put it in with a seed drill, 

 in rows, or to broadcast it ? 



A. It is quickest, cheapest and simplest to broadcast it, but a better 

 practice is to drill it, as drilled seed is put down more deeply into the soil, 

 and is therefore able to resist drought under conditions when broadcasted 

 surface-sown seed would dry up and die. 



558. Q. Will cabbage plants head if the seed is sown where the plants 

 are to stand ? 



A. Yes, a portion will head ; sometimes eighty per cent, will head.* At 



Onion Sets. 



Cabbage. 



