146 



On the Nitrate of Soda, 



some practical men of the exhausting effect of these salts, prevent a per- 

 fectly unqualified decision on the subject. I regret that by accident my 

 unnitrated wheat was disposed of before the two samples were compared 

 by the test of incineration. The case in point would have superseded all 

 argument by analogy. 



The experiments which are the subject of this paper were carried on, 

 and the practical part of them, though not in writing, have already 

 been detailed to the Farmers' Club at Gloucester, for the purpose of 

 drawing the attention of the farmer to the simplicity and many other 

 advantages of a fairly made and circumstantially recorded experiment ; 

 for after all, it is by the accumulation of isolated facts — the results even 

 of such trifling experiments as those reported above — that the science 

 of agriculture can alone be advanced. As an art, the oldest of all and 

 the most universal of all, it is still at this day more the work of empiri- 

 cism, and less that of induction, than any other. Since the time when 

 the Board of Agriculture turned the attention of Sir Humphrey Davy 

 to the pursuit, how little has been done in this country to advance it to 

 the rank of a science ! From his time to the present, with one or two 

 exceptions, no very important step has been taken in that direction. It 

 is true, the process of experimenting and storing up results is neces- 

 sarily a slow one. The Board of Agriculture did much in their liberal 

 encouragement of Davy. The useful work on Organic Chemistry, by 

 Professor Liebig, though a foreigner, is owing to the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science ; but the Royal Agricultural Society 

 opens much brighter prospects. 



Remarks of so general a nature I should scarcely have presumed on, 

 did I not find that others far more entitled to consideration have not 

 thought them unnecessary, and were they not intended to preface a 

 practical suggestion which I venture, with much deference, to , oflFer for 

 the consideration of the Committee of our Society. Might they not 

 draw a list of a few of those experiments which they deem most inte- 

 resting, and each year submit two or three for trial to the members? 

 They might even, to insure uniformity of purpose and accuracy, pre- 

 scribe the scheme for the conduct of each experiment ; and surely there 

 are many of the most competent in the country who would bring their 

 zeal and skill to bear upon the point suggested. 



The advantages to be expected are numerous, and far exceed those of 

 any single experimental farm. A number of independent gentlemen 

 would be induced to employ themselves on an interesting and useful 

 subject, who, having no particular system to uphold, would have no bias 

 to anything but an accurate and true result. Such experiments would 

 be conducted contemporaneously, and under the influence of the same 

 season, but on diff'erent soils. Even in detail you would check earlier 

 than is done at present the adoption of much erroneous and unprofitable, 

 and encourage that of much improved and profitable, practice, while by 

 degrees you would acquire a store of facts which could not but form, 

 ^Sooner or later, the groundwork of a very general and extensive im- 

 provement in our agricultural system. 



W. H. Hyett. 



Painswick, Gloucestershire, Nov., 1840. 



