SETTLEMENT. 



STATISTICS OF BRiTISII AGRICULTURE. 



1371 



8496. Action of the machine. After these particulars, little description will be needed ; fur it must be 

 evident that, when the engine is set in motion, it will, by means of the wheel and pinion r, turn the 

 water wheel dd about its centre c; and that, when set in motion, each of the arms will lilt a quantity 

 of water from the trough, or wheel-race, ?n, over the sluice e (see Jig. 1202.), at a higher level to the pond 

 or reservoir, ,f, whence it may be taken away as circumstances may require. 



8497. The expense of the portable steam-engine, exclusive of carriage, and putting up. was about 280/. ; 

 that of the lifting wheel, exclusive of the masonry, about 70/. ; and the total 

 expense of the whole about 450/. 



8498 7943. The study of chemistry by practical fanners is strongly recom- 

 mended by most writers on scientific agriculture ; but this Dr. Madden con- 

 siders an error. " I have noticed," he says, " with regret, that almost all 

 the popular works hitherto written upon agricultural science have fallen into the 

 one common error of endeavouring to make a chemist of the practical farmer ; 

 the authors all seem to think it necessary that, in order to the improve- 

 ment of agriculture, every farmer must study chemistry. In this respect, how- 

 ever, I hold a totally different opinion. It appears to me that it would be a 

 precisely analogous case, if writers on climate had said, that, in order to 

 preserve health, it were absolutely necessary that every individual should 

 study medicine. It is not an extended knowledge of chemistry that is re- 

 quired, — it is only a confidence in the results obtained by chemists that is ab- 

 solutely necessary. If the farmer becomes acquainted with the facts as they 

 apply to his practice, and if he has such confidence in these facts that he is 

 willing to act in accordance to them, there is not the least necessity that he 

 should occupy his time and burden his mind with all the abstruse processes of 

 reasoning and experimental proof by which the chemist has been enabled to 

 trace out their connection with the complex phenomena which they serve to 

 illustrate." ( Trans. H. S., vol. xiv. p. 616.) 



8499. Improvements. Professor Johnston of Durham, one of our first agri- 



1203 



£2 



cultural chemists, says, " Farmers are proverbially slow in adopting improvements: it is well that they 

 are so ; for if they were to adopt every thing which is new, they would most likely suffer many disap- 

 pointments." The same author observes, that "prudence and economy are the soul of agriculture ; and 

 the balance of accounts at the end of the year is the criterion of the system pursued." (U. C, 1843, 



8500. Experience and experiments. In Professor Henslow's lectures before the Royal Agricultural 

 Society, the connection between agricultural science and practice is clearly pointed out. Experience is 

 the only source of scientific knowledge, and this can only be obtained by a long series of observations 



