" Can the Blind Lead the Blind ? " 117 



' I 



is of such importance to the national interests, and 

 especially in connection with the maintenance of the 

 numbers of our rural population, that I enter here into 

 some details to show that the present policy of the 

 Board of Agriculture, and the mfethods of agricultural 

 teaching practically approved of by it, are calculated to 

 deplete still further our largely exhausted soils, and 

 therefore still further reduce the numbers of our rural 

 population. 



In my paper read at Cambridge, I said {vide Appendix 

 IX.) that the chemist must become more of a farmer, and 

 the farmer more of a chemist, before either can work 

 effectively in arresting the downward course of our British 

 soils. And is it not obvious that if, when the blind lead 

 the blind, the result is liable to be unsatisfactory, the 

 leading of the semi-blind by the semi-blind is certain to 

 end in much more serious disaster ? In the former case 

 both are' proverbially liable to be abruptly aroused to 

 the inadvisability of their proceedings, and that, too, 

 before they have gone very far ; but when a chemist 

 who is agriculturally semi-blind leads a farmer who is 

 chemically semi-blind, still more unsatisfactory results 

 are, as we shall see, certain to ensue, for they are sure 

 to be the means of doing much harm by the propaga- 

 tion of that most dangerous form of knowledge known 

 by the name of half-truths. In order to prove this it is 

 only necessary to look into the seventh annual Eeport on 

 Experiments with crops and stock at thq Northumberland 

 County Demonstration Farm, Cockle Park, Morpeth. 

 It is there evidently assuraed that the British farmer has 

 done all he can for himself by fully employing the 

 natural resources within his reach, and that all that 

 remains is for the chemist to step in and assist the farmer 

 either to increase his crops or improve the condition of 

 his animals by the aid of commercial fertilizers. But 

 the chemist (though adding the name agricultural would 

 lead people to suppose that he is an agriculturist as well 

 as a chemist) reaUy knows nothing of agriculture, and 



