The Scientific Agriculture of the Period. 293 



farmer to expect any profitable results from this crop if sown 

 oftener than once in sixteen years. Not even the application 

 of the later invented subsoil plough could prolong the 

 advantages which Tull's process was expected to render per- 

 manent. His exaggeration of the fertilising importance of his 

 mechanical system was, however, destined to be attended with 

 , beneficial results to agriculture. The introduction into the 

 turnip-field of the horse-hoe and the seed-drill as assistants to 

 (not substitutes for) manures were as advantageous to the 

 husbandmen as were, later on, the magnificent failures of 

 Liebig in the laboratory. The invention of more or less 

 clumsy implements by Tull, the amateur, ultimately attracted 

 the intelligent brains of engineering experts to the subject, 

 just as, no doubt, the chemists of the nineteenth century were 

 attracted to agricultural research by a study of the wild 

 theories current in the century before. 



Full as the time was of promise for European agriculture, 

 when practical men resorted to science for information and 

 scientific men turned to nature for an object of research, it 

 Avas fraught, too, wdth danger ; for the husbandman ran no 

 small risk of becoming so disgusted with the fallacies and 

 mistakes of science, as to be induced to repel in future all over- 

 tures of help from so suspicious a quarter. 



InE.'ymij:-; relaflpg to Agricidtnye^ a. work already alluded toby 

 us, its author, James Anderson, has laid down many excellent 

 rules on sound, practical husbandry.^ "AVitli an ardour natural 

 to the impetuosity of youth," he engaged, he tells us, in a study 

 of his chosen profession, and turned to Science for an instrument 

 whereby to help forward his arduous imdertaking. " By con- 

 sulting such authors as fell in his way, he soon found himself 

 deeply involved in intricate physical discussions about the pabu- 

 lum of plants, the influence of salts, oils, and acids, and many 

 other such substances, of which he could form but a very vague 

 and indeterminate idea, so as not to be able, with certainty, to 

 perceive the full force of such arguments as were adduced by 

 these authors in support of their favourite hypotheses." 



^ Essays relaf/nrf to Agriculture and Ihiral Affairs. B3' a Farmer. 

 (J. Anderson.) 1775. 



