20vS SCIENCE OF AGRICULTURE. Part I. 



PART II. 



AGRICULTURE CONSIDERED AS A SCIENCE. 



285. All knowledge is founded on experience ; in the infancy of any art, experience 

 is confined and knowledge limited to a few particulars ; but as arts are improved and 

 extended, a great number of facts become known, and the generalisation of these, or the 

 arrangement of them according to some leading principle, constitutes the theory, science, 

 or law of an art. 



1286. Agriculture, in common with other arts, may be practised without any knowledge 

 of its theory ; that is, established practices may be imitated : but in this case it must ever 

 remain stationary. The mere routine practitioner cannot advance beyond the limits of 

 his own particular experience, and can neither derive instruction from such accidents as 

 are favourable to his object, nor guard against the recurrence of such as are unfavourable. 

 He can have no resource for unforeseen events but ordinary expedients ; while the man 

 of science resorts to general principles, refers events to their true causes, and adapts his 

 measures to meet every case. 



1287. The object of the art of agriculture is to increase the quantity and improve the 

 quality of such vegetable and animal productions of the earth as are used by civilised 

 man ; and the object of the agriculturist is to do this with the least expenditure of means, 

 or, in other words, with profit. The result of the experience of mankind as to other 

 objects may be conveyed to an enquiring mind in two ways : he may be instructed in 

 the practical operations of the art, and their theory, or the reasons on which they are 

 founded, laid down and explained to him as he goes along ; or he may be first instructed 

 in general principles, and then in the practices which flow from them. The former 

 mode is the natural and actual mode in which every art is acquired (in so far as acquire- 

 ment is made) by such as have no recourse to books, and may be compared to the natural 

 mode of acquiring a language without the study of its grammar. The latter mode is by 

 much the more correct and effectual, and is calculated to enable an instructed agricul- 

 turist to proceed with the same kind of confidence and satisfaction in his practice, that a 

 grammarian does in the use of language. 



1288. In adopting what we consider as the preferable viode of agricultural instruction, 

 we shall, as its grammar or science, endeavour to convey a general idea of the nature 

 of vegetables, animals, minerals, mixed bodies, and the atmosphere, as connected with 

 agriculture ; of agricultural implements and other mechanical agents ; and of agricul- 

 tural operations and processes. 



1289. The study of the science of agriculture may be considered as implying a regular 

 education in the student, who ought to be well acquainted with arithmetic and mensur- 

 ation ; and to have acquired the art of sketching objects, whether animals, vegetables, or 

 general scenery, of taking off and laying down geometrical plans . but especially he ought 

 to have studied chemistry, hydraulics, and something of carpentry, smithery, and the other 

 building arts ; and, as Professor Von Thaer observes, he ought to have some knowledge 

 of all those manufactures to which his art furnishes the raw materials. 



BOOK L 



OF THE STUDY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM WITH A VIEW TO AGRICULTURE. 



1290. The various objects with which we are surrounded are either organised, having 

 several constituent parts which united form a whole capable of increase by nourishment ; 

 or they are unorganised, and only increased by additions to their external parts. To the 

 first division belong the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and their study is founded 

 chiefly on observation : to the second belongs the mineral kingdom, the study of which 

 in masses, or geology and mineralogy, is also founded chiefly on observation ; and, vvitli 

 regard to composition and elements, on experiment or chemistry. 



1291. Vegetables are distinguished frojn a?iimals in not being endowed with sentiment, 

 or a consciousness of existence. Tlieir study has employed the attention of mankind from 

 a very early period j and has been carried to a high degree of perfection within the last 



