110 PLANT LIFE ON THE FARM. 
science perfect, which it is very far from being, and were 
practice uniformly intelligent und 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 forgge 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. 
