314 CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



if it cannot be perfectly attained, it is worth while aiming 

 to attain it. But it is, we think, abundantly evident that 

 however near it can be approached by the exercise of care 

 on the part of human labour, it never can be approached 

 by the work of mechanism. True, it may by mechanism 

 be approached, nay, may be positively attained, but then 

 it will only be by chance, and we maintain that it is 

 axiomatic in the philosophy of agriculture that it is unwise 

 to trust to chance if it can be avoided. Selection is there- 

 fore to be made, and care exercised in the thinning of the 

 root crops of the farm ; mechanism to perform this thinning 

 as it ought to be done is therefore put out of court ; for 

 mechanism can neither select, nor can it exercise care. 

 Hand thinning, we venture to say, will be the rule with 

 intelligent farmers who know what an important influence 

 upon the future of the root crop the proper thinning of it 

 has. That machines may be had which will facilitate the 

 process of singling by previously thinning out a portion of 

 the crop, we are by no means disposed to deny. That 

 they will thin we believe, but then they may do more than 

 that ; if they may do good, they may also do evil, and 

 they are just as likely to do the one as the other ; for being 

 machines, they can neither exercise care nor judgment, so 

 that the very plants which a good intelligent human worker 

 would leave in, may be those which the machine may 

 ruthlessly root out. For it must not be forgot, that it is 

 rarely at all events in such a season as this that the 

 rows or drills are uniformly filled with good plants. Much 

 might still be said, as has indeed been already said, in 

 favour of machine thinning, that it does, for example, the 

 work more quickly and cheaply than it can be done by 

 hand; we dismiss this, however, at once, by saying that 

 neither quickness nor cheapness are the points to be aimed 

 at; the point to be aimed at is to have the work well done ; 

 the better it is done, the cheaper in the true sense of 

 the term it is done. One word as to the hoeing and 

 weeding of the crop after thinning has been done. Not 

 always is this after culture of the crop attended to as it 



