8 MR. gray's address. 



Zoology opens her vast storehouse of facts and princi- 

 ples, and developes those laws by which the reproduc- 

 tion of animals is regulated, and their highest perfection 

 attained. 



Mechanical Philosophy may also afford essential aid, 

 and further, the great number of experiments which have 

 been tried by scientific men (and practical farmers) to 

 test the truth of the principles thus developed, render 

 it certain that we have a broad basis on which the art 

 may rest. 



Let the principles derived from Natural Science be 

 applied to Agriculture as they have been to other arts, 

 and we shall soon see it moving forw^ard with the same 

 rapidity. We shall soon attain to similar perfection, 

 and secure a permanency in the acquisitions that are 

 made, which all other means combined can never effect. 



The absolute necessity of basing the whole art of 

 Agriculture on the principles of science, may be shown 

 from the nature of the case, the analogy of other arts, 

 and the history of Agriculture itself. 



From the nature of the employment, its permanent 

 success must depend upon a knowledge of those rational 

 laws by which it is governed. The conditions of suc- 

 cess are too many and too difficult of apprehension, to 

 be discovered anew by each generation of farmers. It 

 requires constant attention to a great variety of circum- 

 stances; and that attention must be given not only from 

 year to year and with regard to each kind of crop, but 

 observations must constantly be made to adapt the mode 

 of treatment to the exigencies of the case. No perma- 

 nent progress can be secured, unless its principles are 

 classified, its experiments recorded, and the accumulat- 

 ed experience of many observers so arranged, as to 

 become attainable by one. Strange as the assertion 

 may appear, it is doubtless true, that few arts can be 

 practised with more doubtful success by those who are 

 unacquainted with the scientific principles upon which 

 they are based, than Agriculture. Scientific farming 

 bears the same relation to that which is not, that history 

 does to tradition; that the recorded events of civilized 



