400 BOAUD OF AGRICULTUKE. 



It is only when the processes of an experiment are in a 

 certain seqnence — when there are several processes involved, 

 and the whole is represented in a formula, precise and correct, 

 that the experiment of one person is adapted for comparison 

 with that of another. This is so fully recognized by men of 

 good scientific culture, that they rarely express the result of 

 an experiment, without detailing the manner in which it has 

 been reached. In experiments that are any way involved, 

 and are not of the simplest kind, there is demanded an 

 accuracy and defiuiteness of treatment that is raised vastly 

 above the commonplace. An untiring patience with details, 

 a rejection of all compromise with error to save trouble, is 

 indispensable. Plow often has some condition essential to 

 success been overlooked, so that our efforts are wasted ! 



In comparative feeding experiments, the curing of the hay, 

 or kind of grasses that compose it, not to speak of analyses, 

 escape attention ; or the animals are not weighed ; or, if cat- 

 tle, conditions are dissimilar, in some of the animals being 

 in a different state of forwardness with calf; or the breeds 

 differ ; or a single animal is put against twenty ; or there is 

 regularity of treatment opposed to irregularity, and a hun- 

 dred chances that some particular has escaped us. 



A general recognition of the importance of possessing a 

 body of facts in agriculture supported by investigation, led 

 to the assembling, at Chicago, in 1871, of a convention 

 where nineteen agricultural colleges were represented. The 

 object, as stated in the call, was " for the purpose of organ- 

 izing, consulting and cooperating in the great work of ad- 

 vancing the cause of agricultural knowledge and education, 

 especially by experimentation, under similar conditions, at 

 all the agricultural colleges." There was weakness in the 

 scheme, and all that need be said of the report of the meet- 

 ing is, that it may hereafter be regarded as an interesting 

 memorial of the scientific conceptions of these infant institu- 

 tions at date. 



Successful investigation depends upon the blending of 

 qualities in the investigator, directed by scientific culture, 

 that may be expected to concur in the few, rather than in the 

 many. Crowds may be in the pursuit of a truth, but the 

 indivldaal will at last find it ; as among a military people 



