SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE. 4G7 



this discipline if it were within my reach. 3Jut this is not ne- 

 cessary that science may bring its blessings to every farm. 



Nor is a scientific farmer necessarily a man of wealth and 

 intelligence, retired from professional life, or some other cull- 

 ing, to amuse himself in rural occupations. There are such 

 mm, wise in other things, but sciolists in the cultivation of the 

 earth, who spend a hundred dollars to get a crop worth lifty 

 from the soil. They are generally the laughing stock of all 

 common-sense farmers in their neighborhood, and arc thought 

 to be a standing refutation of the utility of book farming. But 

 this argument is not fair. Agriculture is not their business, 

 but their amusement, and they do not conduct their operations 

 at all with reference to profit. No farmer understands the 

 science of his business until he sees his way clear to get back 

 every dollar of capital that he expends upon his soil, with a 

 large increase. He is a man who understands both the science 

 and the practical details of every operation upon the farm. 

 He can tell you, not only why a thing should be done in a given 

 way, and how to do it, but he can do it himself. He is a scep- 

 tic as to the wisdom of his grandfather, and believes that even 

 all agricultural knowledge did not die with his father. He is a 

 man who knows something about his business, and looks for 

 new revelations in the future. 



The man of science upon the farm, in the first place, knows 

 something of the composition of his soils. These are the ma- 

 terials on which he is to display his skill, and out of which he 

 is to rear his harvests. There is a great difference in these ; 

 and, without a proper knowledge of their ingredients, he can- 

 not tell how to grow a crop to good advantage. It is all a 

 matter of experiment whether or not he have a remunerative 

 harvest. Without this knowledge, too, he is unable to tell 

 what amendments his soils require, even when the chemist has 

 made an analysis of them. A farmer who does not understand 

 this is as poorly fitted for his business as the smith would be 

 who did not comprehend the different qualities of metals, or 

 the carpenter who could not tell the difference between white 

 oak and white pine. The mechanic who should give you a pine 

 plough beam or a chestnut axe helve would be called a bungler 

 or a knave. And yet his case would be parallel with that 



