54 



Root Crops. — Agriculture as a Science. 



Vol. V. 



lulary eflect on the health of animals, and, 

 when a plenty of substantial food is fed with 

 it, may be productive of good effects," but 

 why the judicious use of it must be restricted 

 " mostly to that of promoting a full flow of 

 rich milk in cows," is not easily understood 

 — surely, with the same judicious use, it 

 would be found of equal value to the young 

 and dry stock of the farm, and if so, I should 

 be quite content; and, after supplying the 

 milk stock, and the dry stock, young and old, 

 with plenty of food "having a salutary effect 

 on their health," i\\e fattening stock, hogs and 

 all, may be finished with corn or rice, or in 

 any other way which might be preferred, 

 with my perfect approbation. All this while, 

 be it remembered, a vast addition is being 

 made to the manure upon the farm, from the 

 produce of a most trifling part of the land, 

 an acre of which, by judicious use, being 

 made to yield 55 tons of green food — an in- 

 calculable resource in a hard and severe win- 

 ter — and, by the feeding of which to the cat- 

 tle in stalls, the manure might become, in its 

 after effects, of value almost equal to the 

 animals which have fed the crop — especially 

 if care be taken to keep it under cover, and 

 not expose it to be washed away by the win- 

 ter rains; by which management its value 

 would be enhanced three-fold. 



I suppose there will ajv^ays be a contra- 

 riety of opinions on every subject, and I am 

 not sure that such a state of things is altoge- 

 ther to be deprecated; in the very article 

 from which the above remarks are taken, 

 there is strong testimony in favour of the 

 Chinese, or tree-corn ! And the writer con- 

 cludes by saying, " Mr. Thorburn has my 

 thanks for introducing this excellent article; 

 and, when its merits and demerits are well 

 understood, I believe he will have the thanks 

 of thousands of others, as a public benefac- 

 tor.'''' Now, this must be a aweet-smelling 

 savour to that gentleman, I presume, after so 

 much roasting and basting as he has received 

 on the Chinese-corn account ; but his rejoic- 

 ing will be of short duration, for, in the very 

 same number of the Cultivator, page 104, we 

 find the Editor himself so ungracious as to 

 add, " But the Chinese-corn, that ' God-send 

 from the Celestial Empire,' proved with Mr. 

 Fullerton, as with thousands of others, the 

 veriest ' take-in' that can well be imagined !" 



Then, who shall decide when Doctors dif- 

 fer so widely. I answer, let every one be 

 fully persuaded in his own mind, and decide 

 for himself; proving all things, let him hold 

 fast to that whicli is good. For myself, I 

 have no doubt, as the writer says above, when 

 the merits and demerits of the sugar-beets 

 are well understood, they will be highly ap- 

 preciated, if they are used with discretion, 

 and v;ill be found all that tliey ever professed 



to be, namely, the best root crop that can be 

 cultivated, taking into account the yield in 

 quantity and quality, and the ease with which 

 the crop can be harvested — a matter of great 

 importance to the farmer — when compared 

 with the labour of taking from the ground a 

 carrot or parsnip crop, which, as one observes, 

 requires the power of a little steam-engine 

 to do it properly. Beta. 



P. S. By the way, is not the correspondent 

 of the Cultivator going a little out of Ais ivay 

 to comfort the man who is some day to enjoy 

 the blessings of thousands as a public bene- 

 factor, when he says he considers the tree- 

 corn, while yet in the milk, superior to the 

 matured corn of every other species? These 

 are his words — " I think that hogs may be fed 

 with the corn in the milk, and be made by it 

 to thrive beyond what can be done by any 

 other substance.'''' Or, possibly, we are ex- 

 pected to receive this account (as that which 

 informs us, that at the end of two weeks fat- 

 tening his hogs upon boiled sugar-beet, one 

 large sow had put on an appearance so woe- 

 begone that he induced a charitable friend! 

 to take her oft' his hands free gratis) ivith a 

 grain of allowance. 



Agriculture as a Science. 



All knowledge is founded on experience ; 

 in the infancy of any art, experience is con- 

 fined, and knowledge limited to a few par- 

 ticulars; but as arts are improved and ex- 

 tended, a greatnumber of facts become known, 

 and tjie generalization of these, or the ar- 

 rangement of them according to some lead- 

 ing principles, constitutes the theory, laws, 

 or science of an art. 



Agriculture, in common with other arts, 

 may be practised without any knowledge of 

 its theory ; that is, established practices may 

 be imitated; but in this case it must ever 

 remain stationary. The mere routine prac- 

 titioner cannot advance beyond the limits of 

 his own particular experience, and neither 

 derive instruction from such accidents as are 

 favourable to his object, nor guard against a 

 recurrence of such as are unfavourable. He 

 can have no resource for unseen events but 

 ordinary expedients, while the man of sci- 

 ence resorts to general principles — refers 

 events to their true causes, and adopts his 

 measures to meet every case. 



The object of the art of agriculture is to 

 increase the quantity and improve the quality 

 of such vegetable and animal productions of 

 the earth as are used by civilized men ; and 

 the object of the agriculturist is, to do this 

 with the least expenditure of means, in other 

 words, profit. The result of the experience 

 of mankind as to other objects may be con- 

 veyed to an inquiring mind in two ways : he 



