INTKODUCTION. 7 



pretation of facts. It is the expression of the ideas which 

 facts awaken when submitted to a fertile imagination and 

 well-balanced judgment. A scientific theory is intended 

 for the nearest possible approach to the truth. Theory 

 is confessedly imperfect, because our knowledge of facts 

 is incomplete, our mental insight weak, and our judg- 

 ment fallible. But the scientific theory which is framed 

 by the contributions of a multitude of earnest thinkers 

 and workers, among whom are likely to be the most gifted 

 intellects and most skillful hands, is, in these days, to a 

 great extent worthy of the Divine truth in nature, of 

 which it is the completest human conception and ex- 

 pression. 



Science employs, in effecting its progress, essentially 

 the same methods that are used by merely practical men. 

 Its success is commonly more rapid and brilliant, because 

 its instruments of observation are finer and more skill- 

 fully handled ; because it experiments more industriously 

 and variedly, thus commanding a wider and more fruit- 

 ful experience ; because it usually brings a more culti- 

 vated imagination and a more disciplined judgment to 

 bear upon its work. The devotion of a life to discovery 

 or invention is sure to yield greater results than a desul- 

 tory application made in the intervals of other absorbing 

 pursuits. It is then for the interest of the farmer to 

 avail himself of the labors of the man of science, when 

 the latter is willing to inform himself in the details of 

 practice, so as rightly to comprehend the questions which 

 press for a solution. 



Agricultural science, in its widest scope, comprehends 

 a vast range of subjects. It includes something from 

 nearly every department of human learning. The natu- 

 ral sciences of geology, meteorology, mechanics, physics, 

 chemistry, botany, zoology and physiology, are most in- 

 timately related to it. It is not less concerned with so- 

 cial and political economy. In this treatise it will not be 



