SCIENCE OE AGRICULTURE. 109 



" Last spring I spread two loads of compost manure 

 on the lot." 



What were the constituents of this compost? I 

 need not go through the statement. This must be 

 sufficient to show that no other man can extract 

 from it any information of the best method of culti- 

 vating barley on his own farm, whose clayey loam, his 

 manure and compost m.anure may be altogether dif- 

 ferent articles from those mentioned by the same 

 names in the statement from which I quote. Other 

 statements in the same annual publication, my own 

 not excepted, are liable to the same objections. 

 And the principal reason why farmers derive so little 

 benefit from books, and consequently often decry 

 " book farming," is that farming books are deficient 

 in some of the most essential particulars — full of 

 imperfect certificates and rules, owing to the fact 

 that no analysis has been made of the soils and ma- 

 nures in question. " Hence," says Dr. Jackson, "we 

 account for the uncertainty of the results obtained 

 by those who make trial of new methods of farming. 

 If, however, all the conditions of the problem were 

 understood by both parties, farmers would readily 

 join hands with their scientific co-laborers, and the 

 art of agriculture would soon become as certain as 

 any other art, while, by the application of scientific 

 principles, the business would become of a more 

 exalted character, and assume its true rank in the 

 consideration of all men." 



Towards reducing agriculture to a science, how- 

 ever, but little progress has, as yet, been made. 

 And even that little often stated in terms not gene- 

 rally understood, and recorded in books to which 

 but few have access, has hitherto been of little or 

 no benefit to practical farmers. Any attempt there- 

 fore, however imperfect, to slate some of the elemen- 

 tary principles of the science of agriculture in plain 

 language, so that any one may, by giving to it that 

 study and attention which is requisite to attain any 

 other branch of human knowledge, understand and 



