200 
The Present State of Agriculture 
it was rarely sought from books by those who practised it, so 
those who wrote rarely committed to paper the details of what 
they had observed, or made their trials with the view to after-pub- 
lication. 
And yet I need not explain to you how necessary, in all the 
sciences of observation, is a precise attention to facts, and a care- 
ful record of them. Facts so ascertained and recorded are the 
very stepping-stones by which any sure advance can be made. 
Without them no safe opinions can be formed by ourselves, nor can 
the opinions of others be satisfactorily tested or fairly criticised. 
Secondly. In the second place I was struck by the currency, in 
theoretical writings, of a crowd of hasty hypotheses, some of them 
scarcely deserving the name of guesses at truth — propounded 
often with confidence, and received as ascertained principles, 
though there were no unexceptionable facts to support them, nor 
exact experimental data by which to test them. 
It is one thing to write for distinction, and another for the 
illustration or advancement of the truth — one thing to propound 
ingenious and brilliant conjectures, and another to bridle in one's 
own hasty exuberance, and after cautious consideration only to 
bring our opinions before the public — as the wary farmer winnows 
well and cleans and hand-picks the corn he intends to offer in 
competition for a prize. The less cautious and profound have 
hitherto been the most numerous among the writers upon agri- 
cultural theory; but it was the same with the other sciences of 
observation until a very recent period. Speculations and fanciful 
theories — beautiful, highly poetical often, and indicative of high 
talent — formed, less than a century ago, the staple philosophy of 
the chemical and geological sciences. Number came, however, 
and weight and measure, and the use of exact instruments, to be 
applied to these branches of knowledge : and before them the 
brilliant imaginings of the early writers have sunk into forgetful- 
ness. And so it will be in agriculture. The well-weighed and 
thoroughly- tested notions — deductions I ought rather to call 
them — of our agricultural writers will alone retain their place in 
the rural creed of the coming generation. 
You will, I am sure, excuse me if I venture to add, from my 
own experience, that the constant demand for excitement and 
novelty which widely prevails among the agricultural body, exer- 
cises upon those scientific men who are engaged in your behalf 
an amount of pressure from without which is unfavourable, in a 
high degree, to that calm deliberation and well-digested maturity 
of views so necessary to sure progress in science. Be cautious 
whom you trust or select for employment in your service ; but, 
having exercised this caution and v^ise discretion, wait patiently 
for those results which are sure to follow more or less immedi- 
