MR. braman's addrkss. 37 



Now the proposition is to establish schools in which the 

 theoretical and practical are combined. Every new deduction 

 of scientific research will be subjected to actual experiment, 

 and tested by successful results, before it is patented for the 

 public use and benefit. 



It is also fair to put the question whether the recommenda- 

 tions of learned men, any oftener fail in experiment, than the 

 suggestions of merely practical men. A person has only to 

 read an agricultural paper, containing the opinions of those 

 who are fresh from the field, he has only to attend a meeting 

 for discussion, in which he hears modes of tillage advocated by 

 gentlemen who confidently lay claim to have put them to the 

 proof of successive trial, and see how common it is for them 

 to be in direct conflict with each other ; and for one to over- 

 throw what another asserts to have been established on the 

 firmest foundations of experience, to be convinced that prac- 

 tice has its uncertainties as well as science. A hundred prac- 

 tical mea will earnestly advocate a mode of agriculture which 

 they have proved by the demonstration of experiment, to be 

 the best mode in the world, which a hundred other men, as 

 experienced and wise as they, will in. the same manner make 

 it clear, is of no value at all. If science and practice often 

 disagree, neither does practice agree with practice. Practical 

 men have no right to throw this imputation on science until 

 they have wiped the reproach from themselves. 



If all the theologians of the United States were convened in 

 one place to debate their points of faith, and all the agricultur- 

 ists to discuss their points of practice, I doubt whether it 

 would not come out, that there was nearly as much disagree- 

 ment in the one assembly as in the other. This I confess. to 

 be a strong assertion. How much do practical men differ 

 about the disease of the potatoe ? There have been as many 

 theories about the source of that extensive malady as have 

 been broached respecting original sin, and what one recom- 

 mends -Es an infallible specific, another declares on the faith 

 and knowledge of a practical man. to be inert and powerless. 

 ■ One objection to agricultural schools, which some assert with 

 :much confidence, is, that they will aftbrd their ad vantages,, to 



