Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 4()]_ 



last season, for instance, the medium-sized whole potatoes have 

 given a smaller yield than I have formerly received, and the two 

 small potatoes, planted in one hill, produced far more than in 

 former years. In order to give the most valuable results, such 

 experiments should be repeated by different persons, for a number 

 of years. 



Difficulties of making Expenment. — The difficulty to get the 

 correct results of experiments is much greater than is generally 

 supposed. If, in a row of seventy hills, two of them should fail, 

 it would make a deficiency of three barrels on the acre. There- 

 fore, experiments are the more valuable, as the scale on which they 

 are made is larger. Then, again, there is often a difference in the 

 soil in one and the same field, influencing considerably the uni- 

 formity of the production. To make expt^riments requires a great 

 deal of careful reflection and action, and no one can make tliem 

 serviceable without a knowledge of a natural history of the things 

 with which he is experimenting. To judge always correctly 

 between the cause and effect, we must have a knowledge of the 

 positive sciences, and, by the study of them, the mind must be 

 trained to observe and judge correctly. The habit of expressing 

 and describing facts superficially, is so common, that, in the majo- 

 rity of reports, we find the words " many," " few," a " good num- 

 ber," " fair yield," and the like, where figures, measm-es and weights 

 ought to express the quantity'. For this reason, hardly one out of 

 ten experiments reported to this Club is of any value. 



While making experiments in the field we encounter, also, diffi- 

 culties of another character. The farmer, in general, is, at the 

 season of the year when they should be made, so occupied that the 

 experiments planned during winter, to be made next spring, are 

 mostly postponed to another year. It requires a great deal of 

 patient perseverance to take your memorandum-book during the 

 hurry of spring work, and note down the number of hills of each 

 variety, to prepare and cut the pieces carefully for a few rows, 

 when everything is behindhand, a storm is threatening, and you 

 know that you might have planted half an acre while you were 

 maldug experiments. Or, may be, a neighbor happens to drop in 

 and kindly reminds you with: "What's the use of fooling away 

 your time; if I wanted to raise potatoes, I'd go in the lot and plant 

 them as my father did, and he was considered the best farmer in 

 the town; and when digging time comes around, I'd find how many 

 I'd got." It requires a great deal of faith in progress and science, 



[Inst.] 26 



