692 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



not turn schoolmaster also ? Has he not power to disseminate information in 

 one form as well as in another ? — for it is but a choice in the manner of coming 

 at the same object, only that he happens to choose the least instead of the most 

 efficient and durable means. In his Patent-Office Pteport he gives merely the 

 statistical fads, instead of the scientific principles — shows agricultural results, 

 instead of establishing insliiutions for teaching how the best results are, under 

 all circumstances, to be realized. 



LIME, USED WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE AND ABUSED WITHOUT REASON. 



There are few things about which practical farmers have more diflered, or 

 been more puzzled, than about the efficacy and value of Lime — some affirming 

 it even to be worti)less, others regarding it as the great panacea for all the ills 

 that afflict the husbandman. For much of that diversity of experience and 

 opinion, Mr. Norton, of Yale College, the accomplished Professor of Chemistry, 

 as applied to Agriculture, thus briefly and readily accounts : 



" I would not for an instant be thought to undervalue practical experience ; its resxxlts 

 have been great and important, and in many cases Science has only followed to explain 

 •what Experience has before discovered. But the process of discovery by experiment alone, 

 is always painfully slow, because the experimenter has no clear perceptions to guide him. 

 In many cases, errors and inexplicable differences of opinion arise, because residts of an 

 opposite character are obtained by individuals in the same neighbrn-hood. 



" I once attended a meetins of a Farmers' Club in Ayrshire, Scotland, where the subject 

 of discussion was Lime. All were from the same neighborhood, and all used lime, but 

 scarcely any two agreed in their estimation of its effects. Some considered it one of the 

 most valuable manures employed, and others condemned it entirely. The discussion was 

 perfectly unsatisfactory in its termination, each person being only confirmed in his own 

 opinion. The true explanation of their differences consisted in the fact, that the soils of 

 their district were deiived from the decomposition oi two species of rock, the one of which 

 abounded in lime, while the other was almost entirely destitute. This was a case in which 

 experience gave no information as to the course most advisable in individual cases. Ex- 

 pensive experiments were necessary in each instance, and after all this expenditure of time 

 and money, no general or useful result was arrived at. But on the other hand, theory alone 

 is almost as objectionable as practice alone. Results obtiiined in the laboratory, or on pa- 

 per, are by no means to be considered as applicable to practice until tested by experience. 

 Ignorance of this fact has led some of the most eminent philosophers into deplorable errors, 

 and has caused many practical men to regard scientific Agriculture as but another name for 

 quackery. The only true course is to unite practice and theory, guiding and explaining 

 each by the other. The utmost possible advance would then be made in both directions, 

 because all experiments would be for definite ends and guided by clear, intelligent views. 



" When we attentively consider the principles which I have now endeavored to present 

 in a connected form, we perceive that they are not only simple, intelligible and practical, 

 but also beautiful. That endless chain which joins the dead earth to the living plant, the 

 plant to the animal, and the animal to the earth agam, is even subhme in its unceasing series 

 of changes." 



We may add that we have known farmers who have, in the beginning, been 

 most charmed by the effects of lime, who afterward began to doubt, and at last 

 condemned it as an exhauster. This has been because they have looked to it to 

 supply everything ; and when their lands have been exhausted of other things 

 necessary to the growth of their crops, instead of supplying these other things, 

 they have turned indignantly and unjustly upon the lime, because it has not con- 

 tinued to do what it never could and never promised to do. All this is explained 

 bv that eminent and profound agricultural writer. Von Thaer, and by others. 



WHAT SCIENCE IS DOING FOR AGRICULTURE IN ENGLAND. 



The reader may form some idea of this, when it is seen that chemical investi- 

 gation has undertaken to determme, Avith confidence, and with an accuracy suf- 

 ficient for all useful purposes, the quantity of food necessary to produce one 

 found of flesh, and the cost of its production, according to English prices. This 

 last we omit, on account of the difference between English prices and ours, leav- 



0112, 



