62 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Science, then, is in a certain sense, the product of the human 

 mind. Science simply marks the progress of the great minds, 

 who have given a correct interpretation of Nature. We have 

 science, because men with scientific power are always able to 

 step beyond the boundaries of present knowledge into the re- 

 gions of the unknown, and there from signs unseen by other 

 eyes or unintelligible to other minds, they are constantly send- 

 ing back additional readings or corrected proof of the book of 

 nature. 



There are men in the world who fancy themselves to be lin- 

 guists who can only read translations, and cannot stir an inch 

 beyond where their " ponies " carry them. So there are men 

 who claim to be scientific, simply from the knowledge they have 

 of what others have done without the least power to do for them- 

 selves. There are men who can give you the names of whole 

 cabinets of minerals and yet know nothing of the science of 

 mineralogy, though they are called mineralogists. So a man 

 may know the names of plants and animals and astonish his 

 friends with the extent of his knowledge in this respect, and yet 

 be entirely innocent of the science of botany or zoology. It 

 should be better understood than it is, that no amount of facts 

 of themselves constitutes science and that no amount of scientific 

 knowledge even, necessarily makes a scientific man. A man 

 may even be a good observer of certain phenomena, so that his 

 work may have great scientific value, and yet he may not be in 

 a true sense a scientific man but merely a skilful artisan. 



If we accept these statements we shall see that we have but 

 a small body of scientific agriculture though we have a vast 

 amount of agricultural information that may be made the basis 

 or materials of science, when it can be separated from that 

 which is unreliable, and of merely local value. And we have 

 a smaller body of scientific agriculturists than is generally 

 supposed. Many of our observers and experimenters have not 

 been properly trained, and our best interpreters have not always 

 had reliable data for their conclusions. And others having 

 great power to observe and to collect facts make their generali- 

 zations correspond to some preconceived notion or hypothesis. 

 Their great learning often gives currency to their opinions, even 

 when entirely unsound, or at least of doubtful soundness, when 

 tried by their own facts. Thus Darwin has given us some books 



