OBSTACLES TO PROGRESS. 61 



ashes. I think it would have paid to give seventy-five cents a 

 bushel for the ashes, if I could have bought them, for the rest 

 of the field. 



Mr. FooTE. I made but one experiment, and that was in con- 

 nection with plaster. The ashes gave an increased vigor to the 

 vines, but the yield of tubers was less than where ashes were 

 not used. 



Mr. Briggs. I would inquire as to the use of ashes from 

 lime kilns. 



The President. I have used those ashes myself. I do not 

 think that lime on the soil in my vicinity does very much good, 

 because it is a magnesium and limestone soil. I should prefer 

 ashes without any lime in them. I have never failed to see a 

 benefit from ashes on any soil, but I do not think that lime does 

 much good on our soil. 



Adjourned to evening, at 7|- o'clock. 



Evening Session. 

 The Board met at 7| o'clock to listen to a lecture on 



THE OBSTACLES TO THE PROGRESS OF SCIENTIFIC AGRI- 

 CULTURE. 



BY HON. P. A. CHADBOURNE, 



President of the University of Wisconsin. 



It is fashionable to clamor for science. And to be considered 

 " scientific," is the ambition of many who neither know what 

 science is nor what constitutes a scientific man. 



Science, — and I speak now only of that which relates to mat- 

 ter, — science is Nature interpreted, but not interpreted in de- 

 tached portions, as one might learn the meaning of separate words 

 and sentences scattered here and there through an author. To 

 constitute science there must be such a reading of Nature in 

 some one of her chapters, that the thought in it shall be grasped. 

 And when, from the accumulation of facts by observation and ex- 

 periment, the searcher is able to read the thought and put that 

 thought into language as a general expression legitimately 

 derived from those facts, he is a scientific man, — that is, he has 

 scientific power, although he may have but little learning. And 

 that general expression or interpretation of the facts is science 

 itself. In other words, " science is knowledge classified with 

 respect to principles." 



