566 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



triumphed over matter, in the whole history of our race, and 

 agriculture is no exception to the rule. Every year is making 

 more manifest that the farmer needs to study for his profession, 

 as much as the lawyer or physician ; and that he who studies 

 most, combining at the same time practice with his theory, will 

 be most successful. 



It is necessary here, however, to make an exception to those 

 men who rely wholly on theory, and on books, and whose 

 efforts at practice, unsuccessful for this reason, have disgusted 

 many working farmers, and affixed to the title of hook-farmer 

 a stigma of contempt. Book-knowledge is extremely valuable 

 in itself, but not by itself; combined with practice it can do 

 wonders ; separated from it, the results are those blunders of 

 amateurs, which the old farmers laugh at with so much con- 

 tempt. 



Practice and theory must go together, and it is their close 

 connection that I am advocating before you to-day. I do not 

 come to say to these experienced farmers about me, that I 

 could take their farms and carry on every department of work 

 better than they — if I attempted this, the consequence would 

 certainly be a failure, at least until the every-day practical expe- 

 rience of my younger days should be revived. But I do noth- 

 ing of the kind ; my business is to point out th" connection of 

 your practical views with science ; to find where are the points 

 on which science can aid you. The scientific man has it for 

 his vocation to study the composition of the soil, of the plant, 

 of the animal, of manures ; to learn what are the links which 

 bind them together, what are the laws of the changes and 

 transformations which occur among them ; every fact that he 

 ascertains in his researches, is a direct benefit to the farmer, 

 because it gives him increased power in the various depart- 

 ments of his business. How he thus obtains more power, may 

 not seem quite clear to all of you ; let me now therefore occu- 

 py a little time in noticing some cases, in which scientific knowl- 

 edge can be clearly seen to be productive of advantage. 



We will first turn our attention to soils. By means of 

 chemical analysis, we can take any one of the bodies which 

 we see around us, and separate it into its component parts ; we 



