OF AGRICULTURE. 171 



a wide renown, as also the pears which are 

 grown in the open air, but each of which is 

 protected on the tree by a separate cap, and 

 still more the fruit and vegetables which are 

 grown in the hothouses. In a word, it will 

 suffice to say that on the whole they obtain 

 agricultural produce to the value of 50 to 

 each acre of the aggregate surface of the island. 



Fifty pounds' worth of agricultural produce 

 from each acre of the land is sufficiently good. 

 But the more we study the modern achieve- 

 ments of agriculture, the more we see that the 

 limits of productivity of the soil are not at- 

 tained, even in Jersey. New horizons are con- 

 tinually unveiled. For the last fifty years 

 science especially chemistry and mechanical 

 skill have been widening and extending the 

 industrial powers of man upon organic and 

 inorganic dead matter. Prodigies have been 

 achieved in that direction. Now comes the 

 turn of similar achievements with living plants. 

 Human skill in the treatment of living matter, 

 and science in its branch dealing with living 

 organisms step in with the intention of doing 

 for the art of food-growing what mechanical 

 and chemical skill have done in the art of 

 fashioning and shaping metals, wood and the 

 dead fibres of plants. Almost every year brings 



