HINDRANCES AND HELPS. 271 



that we have put no wider gap between ourselves 

 and those twilight times. The gap is, however, far 

 wider than it seems ; for while those old gentlemen 

 made good hits in their practice, they rarely an- 

 nounced a principle on which good cultivation de- 

 pended, but they were egregiously at fault. The 

 centuries, with their science and added experience, 

 have solved the reasons of things ; not all of them, 

 indeed as Liebig in his last book needlessly tells us 

 but enough of them to enlist a more intelligent 

 method of culture. The ancients recommended a 

 rule of practice, because it had succeeded in a score 

 or a hundred of trials ; but if some day it failed, they 

 must have groped considerably in the dark for a 

 cause. We lay down a rule of practice in obedience 

 to certain clearly determined natural laws ; and if 

 failure meets us, we know it is due not to falsity of 

 the laws but to some one of a rather wide circle 

 of contingencies, not foreseen or provided against. 

 And it is the due adjustment and measurement of 

 precisely this circle of contingencies whether be- 

 longing to weeds, weather, or markets which most 

 thoroughly tests the sagacity of the modern farmer. 



This sagacity is of far larger service, than 1 think 

 scientific fanners are willing to admit. Over and over 

 it happens that some uncouth, raw, strapping, unread 

 man succeeds, year after year, in making crops which 



