494 



On the Sheep-Pox. 



the sbeep-pox among them must be evidenced. I would also 

 venture to suggest, that it might be worth while to make experi- 

 ment with the cow-pox on sheep, since it may possibly produce 

 an amelioration of their disease, similar to that which the human 

 race has derived from the introduction of vaccination. With the 

 earnest desire that, meanwhile, the adoption of inoculation may 

 be found as efficacious in England as it has long proved on the 

 Continent, for the suppression of so terrible a scourge, 



I have, &c., 



J. Stanley Carr. 



Tuscheiiheck {Duchy of Lauenherg)^ 

 October IMt, 1847. 



y^^llJ .—A(/ricuUural Chemistry. Turnip Culture. 



By J. B. Lawes. 



Experience is a legitimate and trustworthy guide in all the 

 great practical arts affecting the physical condition of the human 

 race, and, for agriculture as for many other branches of industry, 

 has attained a considerable degree of progress independently of 

 the aid of science ; but in so far as experience, as distinguished 

 from principle, is relied upon, must we be content that the soundest 

 practices should only be adopted by that small proportion of the 

 entire masses who exercise an intelligent observation, and have 

 arrived at rules for future guidance more or less by the lessons of 

 past error. But although the results of investigation into the 

 rationale of well recognised practices should prove them to be 

 in the main consistent with philosophy, rather than show them to 

 be fundamentally erroneous, yet, when it is remembered that a 

 well understood and simply explicable principle is much more 

 easily acted upon and by a much greater number of individuals 

 than are the dictates of the most acute empiricism, the claim of 

 science as an improver, as well as an exponent of the economic 

 arts, must be fully admitted. The young man of average talent 

 and education, by the assistance of principle, attains comparatively 

 early the position which otherwise half a life is spent in seeking. 

 Granting, however, what we are by no means called upon to do, 

 that the best practices of the age are beyond the aid of science, 

 and that their more current adoption rather than their improve- 

 ment is to be expected, a better knowledge than is now prevalent, 

 regarding the first principles of vegetable growth, will serve to 

 protect the farmer from the many snares into which either fraud 

 or ignorance would lead him. If, then, the results of investigation 



