IMPORTANCE OF MAKING EXPtRIMEN^ t^ 



AGRICULTURE, 



" The task of making improvement on the earthy is much 

 more delightful to an undebauched mind^ than all the vain 

 glory which can be acquired from ravaging it by the mosi 

 uninterrupted career of con^^esi,''— ^Washington.- 



AT this period, when the prejudices which have long 

 existed unfavorable to the improvement of Agriculturev 

 have been In a considerable degree scattered, by the 

 beams of truth and science, little need be said perhaps 

 npon the importance of instituting various experiments 

 for the further advancement of the art. Men are not 

 habitually thoughtful and reflecting ; but find it much 

 easier to receive the creeds of those who have gone be- 

 fore them as orthodox, than to examine for them- 

 selves and discover whether those doctrines are 

 in consistency with the dictates of reason and sound" 

 policy. So it is in Agriculture — the mode adopt- 

 ed by the father is almost invariably pursued by 

 the son ; and the clearest dictates of reason are far less 

 persuasive than the example of ancestors — like the ma» 

 who in carrying hisgrain upon the horse, would ballance 

 it on the one side with a stone, because his father and 

 his grndfather had done so before him ; whenever the 

 glimmerings of reason, if once pernii4.ted to dawn upor^ 



