64 THE STATE AS FARMER 



may result in heavy pecuniary loss. To some it 

 may seem an extreme recommendation to make 

 that every farmer should be an experimenter, but 

 nothing less will meet the necessities of the case. 

 What with the extra labour involved in measuring 

 and weighing, and the loss in yield that some of 

 the methods of treatment may entail, experimenting 

 cannot be done without expense ; but for ordinary 

 practical purposes five pounds will go a long way 

 towards obtaining information that may be worth 

 many times this sum. The land must be measured, 

 and the manures must be weighed and properly mixed 

 and applied, and though the experiment cannot be 

 said to be complete till the produce has been weighed, 

 an experienced farmer can often estimate with the 

 eye with sufficient accuracy what the result of his 

 experiments has been. 



Now, if any of us were ill we should 

 not consult the writings of a specialist who 

 might say that aconite was generally useful 

 but that belladonna had been known to give 

 good results. We should, go to an ordinary 

 practitioner and ask him to tell us what was 

 wrong, and only for further advice in face of 

 a difficulty would he take us to a specialist. 

 Here, then, in land treatment we want first 

 our chemist, biologist, or practical professor 

 of the whole art to look at not onlv our own 



