Agricultural Science and Its Main Object. 



The prosperity of any agricultural country depends upon the 

 prosperity of its agricultural community, and the latter, in turn, 

 depends upon the quantity and the quality of the crops raised on 

 its land. That country takes the lead , in the long run, which raises 

 on a given area twice as much as another country; that farmer 

 is more prosperous who raises on a ten-acre field as much, if not 

 more, than another does on twenty acres. This plain, simple 

 and self-evident consideration establishes at once the pre-emi- 

 nent position which in our days agricultural science should, and 

 as a matter of fact, does occupy in civili/ed countries. For, the 

 ultimate object of all scientific research, of all work in the 

 laboratory, and of all field experiments, is not so much the 

 unearthing of a scientific truth as rather the practical application 

 of scientific truths to farming, so as to render this pursuit more 

 prorfitable and less uncertain. 



Agricultural science embraces necessarily a very wide field. 

 The chemistry and physics of the atmosphere and soil, the ex- 

 haustion of the soil and its restoration to fertility by tillage and 

 artificial manures, the composition of plants and their adaptation 

 to different localities and climates, the feeding of animals, the 

 production of milk, butter, cheese and other dairy matters, the 

 diseases of plants and animals, fruit culture and a variety of 

 other subjects belong legitimately to the science of agriculture. 

 But of all these problems there is one which has occupied the 

 main attention of science from the very start, and which at the 

 same time concerns the most vital interests of the farmer and 

 that subject is artificial fertilization. 



Every farmer knows that even the richest soil, after a while, 

 decreases steadily in fertility; that the ground becomes worn 

 out, exhausted, unable to respond to the demands made upon 



