HINDRANCES AND HELPS 



century), and with no other instructions what- 

 ever — save what regards the dexterous use of 

 implements — would manage a grain field, a 

 meadow, or an orchard, better than the half of 

 New England farmers. 



At first blush, it seems very discouraging to 

 think that we have put no wider gap between 

 ourselves and those twilight times. The gap 

 is, however, far wider than it seems ; for while 

 those old gentlemen made good hits in their 

 practice, they rarely announced a principle on 

 which good cultivation depended, but they 

 were egregiously at fault. The centuries, with 

 their science and added experience, have solved 

 the reasons of things; not all of them, indeed 

 — as Liebig in his last book needlessly tells us 

 — but enough of them to enlist a more intel- 

 ligent method of culture. The ancients recom- 

 mended a rule of practice, because it had suc- 

 ceeded in a score or a hundred of trials; but if 

 some day it failed, they must have groped con- 

 siderably in the dark for a cause. We lay 

 down a rule of practice in obedience to certain 

 clearly determined natural laws; and if failure 

 meets us, we know it is due— not to falsity of 

 the laws— but to some one of a rather wide 

 circle of contingencies, not foreseen or pro- 

 vided against. And it is the due adjustment 



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