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runs too much to beef, or has not the constitution to keep up 

 her milk, or is too closely bred. The two men have one trait 

 in common ; they ane one-sided , they are specialists. The 

 lettuce-grower could not tell a fifteen-quart cow if he died for 

 it ; and the cattle-breeder would scald his lettuce before Feb- 

 ruary was out. Knowledge is great, and one student, though 

 he be talented, can master only a bit. Every scientist there- 

 fore is one-sided. He is all lettuce, or all cow. With this 

 preface we are prepared to place and to appreciate what are 

 called, with improper exclusiveness, " scientific men," to wit : 

 those who follow a subject not for the profit of it, not even 

 that they may teach it, but that they may know it. Such 

 men must of course be specialists, and one specialty is scien- 

 tific agriculture. We must not expect too much of scientific 

 agriculturists. They are human and can know a part only. 

 If they work all day with test-tube and re-agent, they cannot 

 be expected to " point out " a swarth as well as a country lad 

 who never got beyond the rule of three. This advantage, 

 however, is theirs, that they arrive at a result more rapidly 

 and reliably than men of slight education, because they do 

 not try problems already solved, and because they compare 

 thousands of facts where the others compare tens. 



We have noted how ancient is the tilling of the soil, and 

 how slow has been its improvement. Nevertheless, each im- 

 provement was the act of somebody who refused to be con- 

 tented with things as they were, and who studied to find 

 something new and better. How long mankind delved with 

 sharp sticks, we know not. At any rate, the day came, day 

 when a grand genius was born. He gave his mind to the 

 study of sharp sticks ; and at last (perhaps when he was grey- 

 haired) hit on this discovery, that if you held a sharp stick 

 upright and fastened to it a horizontal blunt stick, you could 



