iv Report to the General 3Icefin(/. 



result not always to be inferred from the ordinary g"eolo2:ical 

 maps, in wliicli the rocks or subsoils are represented in their 

 denuded state, and irrespectively of the actual drift or soil that 

 may happen, from various causes, to rest upon their strata. 



The Council are aware of the great caution required in the 

 application of science to the practice of Agricultiu'e ; and of the 

 guarded manner in which any new or striking facts of cultivation 

 ought to be enunciated, in order that the particular circumstances 

 of their occurrence may be most clearly defined. These cir- 

 cumstances they conceive must be accurately understood by the 

 Farmer before he can safely transfer to his own locality a mode 

 of management that may have been adopted with success else- 

 where. Science, so called, can only mislead, when its quality is 

 unsound, or its application erroneous : sound science, indeed, 

 consisting onlv of principles derived immediately from facts ; 

 which principles, when duly applied to practice, constitute an 

 art of any kind ; and this art, whether that of agriculture or any- 

 other branch of industry, is only to be perfected by the applica- 

 tion of improved principles, whether these be accidentally dis- 

 covered or ascertained by direct hivestigation. The Council feel 

 how much the modification or establishment of such principles 

 of improvement depends on the extended practical observation 

 and actual test of their ]M embers ; and w^hile they are most 

 ' desirous, on the one hand, to aid in their legitimate development, 

 they are most anxious, on the other, to prevent their hasty adoption. 

 The really best practice in Agriculture always includes as its 

 prime mover the best science ; but it is only by obtainmg the 

 distinct knowledge of such included science that the conditions 

 can be ascertained under which the practice itself may be trans- 

 ferred successfully to other circumstances : and the Council, in 

 endeavouring to carry out that union of " practice with science," 

 which has become the well-known motto of the Society, invite 

 from its Members such communications of successful instances 

 of management or cultivation, as will either at once become 

 models for adoption, or serve, by comparison with other results, 

 to modify the character and extent of the deductions to be drawn 



