108 SCIENCE AND FRUIT GROWING 



that the modern farmer, if he is to be successful, must, to a 

 certain extent, be an experimentalist, though, perhaps, not 

 quite in the sense in which he generally understands that term. 

 An experimental station may determine for him facts of funda- 

 mental importance, and may indicate the direction in which 

 special observations for each locality should be made; but, as 

 the observations at such a station must necessarily be confined 

 to the particular soil on which the station is situated, there 

 must be many details, dependent on the peculiarities of other 

 soils, which cannot there be ascertained. These should be 

 determined by each farmer for himself. 



An experiment, to the ordinary farmer, often consists in trying 

 some advertised manure, probably during one season only, and 

 probably, also, on the whole of a field, which may often be 

 ill-adapted to the purpose : from the result of such a so-called 

 experiment (which may be exceptional owing to some exceptional 

 character of the season) he will either adopt that manure as 

 infallible, or reject it, and abuse experiments generally. But 

 such haphazard trials cannot be ranked as experiments at all. 

 For a grower to obtain information of real value, he has only 

 to select some uniform field, or portion of a field, and treat one 

 part of it with one dressing, and the rest with some other dressing, 

 repeating the treatment for several seasons, and, perhaps, after a 

 time, reverse the treatment in the case of the two portions : the 

 results would tell him which dressing paid him best. It might 

 cost a few shillings extra in labour, and an hour or so in calcula- 

 tion, but would probably be worth many pounds a year to him 

 in his future crops. On a subsequent occasion it would be 

 easy for him to try a further experiment, such as a combination 

 of natural and artificial dressings, and ascertain whether any 

 advantages accrued, sufficient to compensate him for the 

 additional expenditure. 



Such simple experiments, or trials, are not beyond the 

 means or capacity of any fruit-grower of average ability : the 

 marvel is that they are so rarely made, and that men whose 

 existence depends on the correctness of their practice, should 

 not adopt the most practical of all methods of obtaining the 

 knowledge which they require that of ascertaining for them- 

 selves by direct trial what treatment of their crops is the best. 

 Special training, no doubt, is necessary for the execution of 

 elaborate experiments, and special knowledge is necessary to 

 teach how far the results can be generalised so as to be applicable 

 to other land and circumstances : but the 'case is quite different 



