HINDRANCES AND HELPS 



connection, that the free interchange of ques- 

 tions and answers, and unstarched compan- 

 ionship of our State Agricultural Conventions, 

 are among the best means of breaking down 

 the walls of demarcation, and establishing 

 chemical affinities between Science and Prac- 

 tice. 



LACK OF PRECISION 



The manufacturer, in ordinary times, can tell 

 us with a good deal of certainty how much 

 work he can turn out in any given month, and 

 what his profits will be. The farmer, whose 

 crops are dependent in a greater or less degree 

 upon contingencies of wet, or dryness, or cold, 

 over which he has no control, is less positive; 

 and as a consequence, I think, he grows into an 

 exceedingly loose habit of thought in all that 

 regards his business affairs. Notwithstanding 

 his punctiliousness in moneyed details, and his 

 sharpness at a bargain, he has a more vague 

 idea of his real whereabouts in the world of 

 profit and loss, than any man of equal capital 

 that you can find. If he has a little pile in 

 stocking-legs or in Savings that grows, — it is 

 Profit ; if he has a little debt at the grocer's or 

 the bank that grows, — it is Loss. 



263 



