8 



stone rocks of New England, for instance, give you all the 

 lime and the manurial requirements wanted, and with the com- 

 mon air you can get all the culture you need. I had occasion 

 to go down to Delaware a few months ago — a State where men 

 get $5000 for an acre of strawberberries. I saw one corn-field 

 upon which the man told me he had raised eighty bushels to 

 the acre ; but I told him that in New England they some- 

 times raised one hundred bushels to the acre, not including 

 the pumpkins, squashes, etc., which were raised with it, (laugh- 

 ter). I mentioned that one hundred and seventeen bushels 

 of corn had been raised to the acre in the town of Pembrook, 

 Mass. (Applause). This story was very hard for the man to 



believe. 



But it is not these exceptional crops, let me say, that are 

 best calculated to improve our agriculture ; and this leads me 

 to the subject upon which I want especially to speak to you, 

 viz:— "What really should be. the objects and the motives of 

 the agriculturists of this country ?" We are all talking about 

 the science of agriculture. What we want to know is whether 

 it can be reduced to practical results. These various experi- 

 ments made by men to get extraordinary crops do but little 

 to advance the real science of agriculture. True science gets 

 all the facts, lumps them together, and deducts conclusions 

 from the whole, and not from isolated parts. The agricul- 

 tural colleges do a vast deal of good, and will do more when 

 the people come to understand what the real value of an agri- 

 cultural college is. They teach that it is better to offer a 

 premium for crops which can be easily raised, than for those 

 extraordinary crops which can only be raised with difficulty. 

 It is well for the farmer to understand the limitations of his 

 work, and to know what he can do and what he cannot do, — 



