44 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. 



1. The first step towards improvement is a conviction that we 

 have not yet reached perfection. But it is well known that con- 

 victions of this sort are not very easily awakened in the minds of 

 persons moving constantly in the same limited circle, comparing 

 themselves with none but their immediate neighbors. Such men 

 are commonly prepossessed in a degree commensurate vriih. their 

 ignorance, that no improvement can be made. How strong and 

 widely extended, for example, has been the prejudice among our 

 agricultural population, against " book farmers ?" This iJliberal 

 sentiment still exists, though we believe it is beginning to give 

 way. What now can be expected of such men in reference to 

 what is, not merely a practical art, but a science of the highest 

 order, requiring a combination of various subordinate sciences in 

 order to consummate its perfection. It is an established fact that 

 the sciences of chemistry, of animal and vegetable physiology, of 

 mechanics, form the foundation both of the theory and practice of 

 that most important art, whose object is to obtain supplies of food, 

 by co-operating with those laws which regulate the growth and 

 multiplication of the animal and vegetable productions of the earth. 

 Agriculture, says Liebig, is both an art and a science ; its scien- 

 tific basis embraces a knowledge of all conditions of vegetable life, 

 the origin of the elements of plants, and the sources whence they 

 derive their nourishment. Now looking to the vast mass of our 

 agricultural population, in their present character and modes of 

 thinking, it is vain to expect that they will, individually, make 

 those experiments without which there can be no useful discovery. 



2. But even if they had the disposition, the great majority of 

 our farmers have not the means of making the requisite experi- 

 ments fully to test the virtues of various soils and manures. The 

 farmer's whole capital — we speak of the class — is invested in his 

 land and the usual means of its cultivation ; his farm probably is 

 not without some incumbrance upon it ; he can, therefore, spare 

 neither his land nor his time, for experiments which may turn out 

 well, and may subject him to loss. 



3. Neither can the gentleman-farmer — to use a term Avhich has 

 become somewhat common — be depended upon for the determina- 

 tion of the great question before mentioned. We of course must 

 be understood as speaking of them generally. There are no doubt 

 many exceptions to the remark just made ; there are men possess- 



