No. 12. 



Science and Agriculture. 



375 



livings to get. I Iiave lived long enough to 

 have my heart a little mellou'ed for those 

 younger than myself, and therefore send for 

 the Cabinet, if the editor please, these 

 thoughts of Uncle Job. 



Science and Agriculture. 



There is a spirit of liberal inquiry at»road 

 in respect to agriculture, blazing in the val- 

 leys, and beaming from the hill tops, and 

 everywhere diffusing an invigorating, a 

 stirring, and a healtliful radiance. One of 

 the wisest of our race, who applied his 

 heart, as he says, to understand wisdom, 

 has told us that there is nothing new under 

 the sun ; what is, has been ; and the human 

 mind is not liisely to spring suddenly a mine 

 of truth, which has never before been touch- 

 ed; nor may it expect at once to accomplish 

 the solution of recondite problems, which 

 have baffled the most penetrating and puz- 

 zled the most sagacious minds. It would be 

 the grossest injustice to many men of the 

 brightest powers, of profound investigation, 

 and of most liberal and disinterested views, 

 who, though they have gone out, have left a 

 brilliant track behind them — to say that 

 agricultural science has never before been 

 prosecuted with zeal, intelligejtee, and in 

 the spirit of true philosophy. ^ 



I am not a believer in the immediate ap- 

 proach of an intellectual millennium ; nor 

 can I persuade myself that philosophy has 

 just been born into the world, and that all 

 preceding ages were ages of comparative 

 barbarism. It is true that the natural sci- 

 ences are now prosecuted with singular ad- 

 vantages and success ; that, in a particular 

 manner, chemistry has, in a measure, been 

 created within the last half century; and 

 that it promises to render the most essential 

 aid to agriculture. Excepting, however, the 

 stimulus which it has everywhere given to 

 inquiry and observation, and the exact ex- 

 periments which it is prompting farmers. — 

 even in the humblest departments of agri- 

 culture — to make, it cannot as yet point to 

 many positive practical triumphs. Sanguine 

 as I am, in common with others, in its appli- 

 cation to agriculture, ultimately and perhaps 

 speedily yielding the most beneficial fruits, 

 it has not yet even approached a solution of 

 many of the profound secrets of nature. 

 Whether this triumph is ever to be achieved 

 by human sagacity; whether, with our pre- 

 sent faculties, we are capable of entering 

 into these deep mysteries, and of lifting 

 up even a corner of the veil which Heaven 

 has drawn over them, it would be idle to 

 conjecture; but they are, as yet, a sealed 

 book to U8. In the spirit of the book of 



books, "let us wait at wisdom's gates, let 

 us watch at the posts of her doors;" let us 

 knock, earnestly hoping that they may be 

 opened to us. Those who have gone before 

 us have done the same, and were favoured 

 with many largesses, which they have be- 

 queathed to their children. Let us do them 

 justice by gratefully acknowledging our debt 

 to them ; and not wrap ourselves up, as we 

 are very liable to do, in the vain conceit 

 that they knew nothiqfg, and that we know 

 everything. 



We talk about uniting science with agri- 

 culture, as if this were the first time of ask- 

 ing the banns, when we may be sure the 

 marriage was consummated years and years 

 ago. A science, technically speaking, is a 

 particular branch of human knowledge, 

 which has been systematized and drawn up 

 in regular form ; its particular principles 

 and rules defined, its department circum- 

 scribed, and its peculiar vocabulary arbitra- 

 rily established. In this respect, chemistry, 

 botany, and mechanics are sciences ; but 

 science, in an enlarged sense, is the obser- 

 vation of nature — the accumulation and 

 comparison of facts, and the deduction of 

 inferences from them, either for the acquisi- 

 tion"^ of more knowledge, or for practical ap- 

 plication and use. I venture to assert that, 

 without any knowledge of the particular and 

 technical terms of art, whose utility I am 

 not disposed in the smallest degree to deny, 

 wherever the mind is at work there is sci- 

 ence ; and many men, who hardly know the 

 letters of a l;ook, are yet profound observers 

 of nature, and may be denominated scien- 

 tific agriculturists; because they are full of 

 knowledge, which they are constantly ap- 

 plying to practice. Now, without any dis- 

 paragement of former times, I think it must 

 be admitted that the universal mind of the 

 agricultural world was never so powerfully 

 stirred as it is at this present time. We* 

 must do what we can to keep it awake and 

 to direct the application of its powers. 

 " Practice with science" is the terse and 

 comprehensive motto of ihe Royal Agricul- 

 tural Society of England. Philosophy now 

 comes down from her high places and takes 

 labour by the hand, that they may walk to- 

 gether among the works of God, and with 

 an enlightened and commendable curiosity, 

 "search into the causes of things." This is 

 the highest office of the human understand- 

 ing. — Colmaii's Agricultural Tour. 



Never drink brandy when you can get 

 wine, never drink wine when you can get 

 beer, never drink beer when you can get 

 cider, and never drink cider when you can 

 get water. 



