566 
Agricultural Statistics. 
original little facts — little in themselves, most important in the 
aggregates they generate and the capabilities they disclose. 
Those who are unused to such a mode of investigation, are 
little aware how much of that mastery over nature which they 
sometimes regard with wonder when seen in practical result — 
how much of the best of our applied knowledge is derived rather 
from an acquaintance with numbers, and froportions, and relations, 
than with the actual substance and essence of the things we deal 
with and reason about. Reduce gravitation to the mere ex- 
pression that ' all bodies attract each other,' and what service 
could Astronomy render to Navigation ? Convert the theory of 
atomic equivalents into a mere vague assertion of the combining 
power of certain substances, and small indeed would have been 
the light or benefit that Chemistry, analytical or experimental, 
could have conferred upon the arts. 
But it would be vain to attempt to explain or enforce the value 
of Statistics (the most immediately practical application of nu- 
merical data) to an inquirer who asks the question of their use in 
the challenging tone of one who hides Avhat he means by 'value.' 
You may give argument upon argument, and proof upon proof 
drawn from the most treasured depositories of daily experience 
and utility, but you can not give the capacity to understand 
arguments, or to appreciate uses, which themselves imply and 
presuppose that adult mental state at which a man begins to be 
sensible to the calls of civilization, as contrasted with the mere 
instincts of a physical and almost childish selfishness. The 
touching retort of the anti-arboricultural squire, who on being 
impleaded to ' do something for posterity ' begged to know ' what 
posterity had done for him ?' was unanswerable, and belongs to a 
class of reply that men are for ever trying their logical skill upon, 
but which never will meet with a successful rejoinder as long as 
the world endures. Practical, convincing, unanswerable evidence 
of disputed good, to the uninformed (but how much more to the 
prejudiced or the suspicious !) requires Time for its accomplish- 
ment ; and cannot be achieved at once by force of argument, or 
felicity of demonstration, charm it never so wisely. 
Yet in truth it is far less difficult to point out, than it would 
be to define the limit of, the uses of Statistics to Agriculture. Irre- 
spective altogether of the question of prices, let us only consider 
the chances and vicissitudes of weather, season, diseases, attacks 
of insects, period of maturity, effects of early or late sowing, the 
use of different manures — all those accidents and circumstances 
that constitute the everlasting matter of new problem and experi- 
ment, — we shall find them capable of sounder elucidation from 
statistical returns than from any isolated individual experi- 
ments, however accurately instituted and carried on. Reports of 
