INTRODUCTION. 3 



But, although art and science are thus inseparable, it 

 must not be forgotten that their growth is not altogether 

 parallel. There are facts in art for which science can, as 

 yet, furnish no adequate explanation. Art, though no 

 older than science, grew at first more rapidly in vigor 

 and in stature. Agriculture was practiced hundreds and 

 thousands of years ago, with a success that does not com- 

 pare unfavorably with ours. Nearly all the essential 

 points of modern cultivation were regarded by the Ro- 

 mans before the Christian era. The annals of the Chi- 

 -\ 



nese show that their wonderful skill and knowledge were 

 in use at a vastly earlier date. 



So much of science as can be attained through man's 

 unaided senses, reached considerable perfection early in 

 the world's history. But that part of science which re- 

 lates to things invisible to the unassisted eye, could not 

 be developed until the telescope and the microscope had 

 been invented, until the increasing experience of man and 

 his improved art had created and made cheap the other 

 inventions by whose aid the mind can penetrate the veil 

 of nature. Art, guided at first by a very crude and im- 

 perfectly-developed science, has, within a comparatively 

 recent period, multiplied those instruments and means of 

 research whereby science has expanded to her present 

 proportions. 



The progress of agriculture is the joint work of theory 

 and practice. In many departments great advances have 

 been made during the last hundred years ; especially is 

 this true in all that relates to implements and machines, 

 and to the improvement of domestic animals. It is, 

 however, in just these departments that an improved 

 theory has had sway. More recent is the development of 

 agriculture in its chemical and physiological aspects. In 

 these directions the present century, or we might almost 

 say the last fifty years, has seen more accomplished than 

 all previous time. 



