110 PLANT LIFE ON THE FARM. 



science perfect, which it is very far from being, and were 

 practice uniformly intelligent and uninfluenced by mere 

 routine or accidental circumstances, it would be found 

 that no single detail of the plant's history was unimpor- 

 tant to the cultivator. As it is, owing to deficient 

 knowledge on both sides, much of what the student 

 learns in the laboratory has no application in the field, 

 and much of what the farmer does on the land is without 

 significance to the student. 



It is the object of the series of Handbooks, of which 

 this is one, to remedy this state of things, and to bring 

 the two classes of workers more into accord, so as to en- 

 sure a greater amount of co-operation beneficial to both 

 parties. The special value to the cultivator of scientific 

 knowledge will probably be found in the power it gives 

 him of availing himself of new resources and of adapting 

 himself to altered conditions no light matter in the 

 present state of agriculture. 



In endeavoring to turn to account some of the lessons 

 which vegetable physiology is able to teach, we have in 

 the first instance to consider what is the special object 

 with which any particular crop is cultivated, because, as 

 has been shown, the conditions suitable, say for the 

 growth of wheat, are not those most fitting for the pro- 

 duction of forage or of root-crops. Then it must be 

 repeated that we grow plants for our own benefit, and 

 only indirectly for the advantage of the plant itself. It 

 may be that the objects for which we cultivate a particu- 

 lar plant are of such a nature as to be best compassed by 

 means most favorable to the general health and welfare 

 of the plant, as in the case of cereals, or it may be that 

 we grow the plant for one particular product, to secure 

 which we endeavor to promote disproportionate leaf- 

 growth or root- growth, as the case may be, at the ex- 

 pense of the other organs of the plant, and so bring 

 about what is really an unnatural and morbid condition. 



