TO THE FARMER. 



15 



lish and demonstrate by actual proof this salutary in- 

 fluence, can excite no astonishment ; without dispute 

 and opposition, new ideas, which demand an altera- 

 tion in the existing order of things, have never yet 

 been brought to realization. In addition to this cir- 

 cumstance, the course which their advocates have 

 taken, with the view of introducing them into the 

 affairs of daily life, has not always been the most ju- 

 dicious and correct. It was rash in Theory to bring 

 forward its opinions, speculations, and conjectures 

 as indubitable truths, without submitting them to the 

 previous ordeal of practical experiment, and from 

 isolated facts to deduce forthwith general conclu- 

 sions ; it was unreasonable in Theory to demand of 

 practical knowledge that it should yield uncondi- 

 tional credence to the promises it made, and re- 

 nounce at once its long-cherished standards in order 

 to march with drum and fife into the new encamp- 

 ment; it was irrational in Theory to undervalue, and 

 indeed to despise, the lessons of practical experience, 

 instead of turning them to profitable use, and to be- 

 lieve in the possibility of science becoming practical 

 without an accurate knowledge of the striking re- 

 sults long since obtained by practice, and without 

 attaching itself closely to the latter by the only 

 means in which this could possibly be effected. 



As one extreme invariably produces another, prac- 

 tical knowledge has fallen, in its turn, into the same 

 error. It v/as rash in Practice, without experi- 

 ments, or from a few isolated and defective ones, to 



