SECRETARY'S REPORT. 31 



ing, at that time, to the rules which science has endeavored to 

 establish, by careful and accurate investigations into the pro- 

 cesses of nature, upon which the farmer depends for the pros- 

 perity of his labors. The properties of the soil, and their 

 relations to a fitness for the various crops, as defined by chemical 

 analysis, were laid before us with great clearness and ability. 

 The use of fertilizers in the way considered by science to be the 

 most effectual and economical was developed with striking 

 method and precision. We listened with profound admiration 

 to the recital of those discoveries in embryology, which seem to 

 promise the establishment of fixed laws by which the farmer can 

 increase and improve his flocks and herds. And we heard with 

 real benefit the details of those practices, by which the diligent 

 and intelligent farmer has arrived at some remarkable result, 

 and has proved to the world by a successful experiment, some 

 law of reproduction which the theorist had " sought but never 

 found." In the debates and lectures there was an admirable 

 combination of the knowledge which had actually served the 

 purpose of some practical farmer, and which he had acquired in 

 the pursuit of his calling, and that knowledge which, starting 

 from abstract principles, only requires tha confirmation which 

 practice alone can give, to become a blessing to mankind. 



Representing, as each one of us does, the agricultural societies ' 

 of the State, and calling together the farmers of tlie neiglibor- 

 hood, we had an opportunity to test the comparative value of 

 the two sources of knowledge to which I have referred. And 

 in the comparison, I think neither side was the loser ; and I am 

 sure no representative of either side retired from those discus- 

 sions without feeling that he was under obligations to the other. 

 The union of the knowledge of the schools, and the knowledge 

 of the field, of the agricultural college and the agricultural 

 society there witnessed might have taught any fair and intelli- 

 gent observer that in the great work of agricultural education 

 the two may and should go hand in hand. 



Tliere are those, I know, who think otherwise. Whether it is 

 their superior knowledge of the business of agriculture, their 

 unusual success in the work of husbandrv, their remarkable 

 ability to judge of the qualities of cattle, the most advantageous 

 crops, the most profitable animals for a given locality, the most 

 economical cultivation, or their ignorance of botli science and 



