424 European Agriculture and 



This extract we commend to the attention of all our 

 readers who cultivate any portion of farm lands. 



The subject Df steeping seeds in peculiar solutions, in or- 

 der to dispense with manure, has for two or three 3"ears 

 been before the agricultural public, and has attracted much 

 attention among practical and scientific agriculturists. Mr. 

 Campbell, of Dundee, was the first to try this experiment 

 in Great Britain, and, according to the accounts given, he 

 has been very successful in attaining his object. Mr. Col- 

 man, to whom Mr. Campbell has disclosed an account of 

 the processes which he has used, sums up the experiments 

 he has witnessed as follows: — 



" I cannot say that I am sanguine as to those extraordinary results to 

 which, from the quotations whicii I have made, some persons look forward, 

 when there will be no longer a necessity for a rotation of crops, and even 

 the application of manure to the soil will be dispensed with. But I can- 

 not help thinking that much remains to be achieved, and that much may 

 be hoped for. We are not to be surprised that failures occur ; but one 

 well-authenticated experiment, conducted in an exact manner, and in 

 which the extraordinary results may be directly traced to the application, 

 is sufficient to outweigh a hundred failures. The exhibition at Dundee, 

 supposing Mr. Campbell's statement to be true, — and I know no reason to 

 doubt, but, from his manly conduct, the best reason to believe them, — sat- 

 isfied me tbat something important had been effected. I rely little upon 

 mere opinion and conjecture, even of parties above suspicion of dishon- 

 esty. The mortification of failure, the desire of success, the ambition of 

 notoriety, and especially any degree of personal or private interest, — all 

 may serve to color tlie vision, to bias the judgment, and present grounds 

 of "hesitation, if not of distrust. With a full share of confidence in the 

 virtue of men, I have been too often disappointed not to require the most 

 ample evidence in all cases of moment. I was not a little amused in vis- 

 iting, with several gentlemen, the farm of an excellent cultivator, the past 

 summer, that, Avhen he showed us in his field of swedes, with an air of 

 the most confident triumph, the surprisingly beneficial effects of a certain 

 application upon some marked rows, every one of the party except him- 

 self was satisfied that the rows in question had no other distinction than 

 that of absolute inferiority to all the rest. It would have been as useless 

 as it would have been uncivil to avow our convictions to him, for men are 

 seldom convinced against their will, and assaults upon an unduly-excited 

 organ of self-esteem, if they do not arouse combativeness, inflict only 

 needless pain. In agriculture, being emimently a practical art, and as 

 yet, I believe, claiming not a single tlieoretical principle as established, 

 excepting as first deduced from long-continued practice, experiments are 

 of the highest moment. The careless and slovenly manner in which they 

 are commonly conducted, the haste with which men jump to their conclu- 

 sions, the variety of circumstances which belong to every case of impor- 

 tance, and the imperfect manner in which these circumstances are ob- 

 served and detailed, are the just opprobrium of tlie agricultural profession. 

 A most intelligent and agreeable friend, in speaking of tlie best modes of 



