THE COMPOSITION OF FERTILE AND BARREN SOILS. 47 



may be stated to the chemist which it would be irrational in him 

 to dismiss, even if they should appear to be inconsistent with 

 recognised chemical principles : he should rather suspect himself 

 than find fault with the universal practice followed hy intelligent 

 farmers. We may rest assured, that as a rule, a practice esta- 

 blished throughout a large tract of country, and followed with 

 success by acknowledged good farmers, has something to recom- 

 mend it, and that it is based on sound scientific principles 

 principles of which we are perhaps altogether ignorant. It is 

 indeed remarkable that the researches of the chemist in the 

 laboratory, when they are carefully and honestly made, always 

 confirm practice of the character just announced. I am rather 

 deviating from my subject, but perhaps that deviation will not 

 be altogether unprofitable. I am anxious to impress on the 

 minds of the farmers that sound practice always tallies with 

 theory, if it is based on a true foundation. There may be much 

 which in the mind of the farmer is set down as theory, in which 

 there is no theory at all ; which passes with him for science, but 

 which is no science at all. What, after all, is science ? It is the 

 systematic arrangement of a number of experiences. Those ex- 

 periences can only be attained by constant attention to practical 

 matters. Such experiences are not attained merely by reasoning, 

 but by experimenting used in its right sense. A farmer who 

 cultivates his land well is continually experimenting ; he intro- 

 duces a new plough, he cuts the soil a little deeper, or buys 

 another manure, and thus he acquires experience ; but frequently 

 the experience would be of much greater value to him if he could 

 give the reasons for the good results that follow. Now, it is the 

 object of the scientific man to account for the benefits that result 

 from agricultural practice ; he does so by instituting experiments 

 different in one respect although similar in another, to the farmer's 

 experiments on his soil. The two stand on a level ; you experi- 

 ment in the farm, and the chemist, who has any claim to be 

 heard by the farmers, experiments in the laboratory. 



Mock Science. 



If one merely looks into works on agriculture, and then writes 

 worthless articles for agricultural papers ; or rushes from one 

 town to another, dashing through the country in an express train, 

 just to satisfy his conscience by visiting such and such a county 

 famed for its agriculture, and if he gets laughed at by practical 

 farmers, it serves him right. There are people of this kind. 

 They will rise from reading a work, perhaps by Professor Liebig, 

 or any other celebrated agricultural writer, and being inflated 

 with their newly-acquired knowledge, think there is nothing 

 better to do than to tell some practical farmer who has been cul- 

 tivating his land successfully, what he had best do to double 



