66 
CHEMISTRY AND AGRICULTURE. 
and set in water or sand all that you mean to 
occupy the various devices and contrivances 
intended for conservatory and dwelling-house 
culture. Sow send. 
December. — Here, if we have been com- 
monly prudent, we have a month's rest, ex- 
cepting if weeds grow on the beds, which 
must be kept clear. If through inadvertency 
any bulbs remain out of ground, lose not a 
moment in getting them in ; and if any of the 
seed be not yet sown, give it a chance by 
sowing it directly ; but you must not expect 
so good a bloom from the hulbs, nor so many 
plants from the seed, although in some in- 
stances, where they have been well preserved, 
both may give some return for the trouble. 
As a general rule, however, every bulb should 
be planted and every seed sown before the 
end of November ; all beyond this is risking 
the health, strength, and sometimes vitality 
itself, of both the one and the other. 
CHEMISTRY AND AGRICULTURE. 
We might as well have written Chemistry 
and Horticulture, for the application is much 
of the same character ; and we are about to 
consider how far it is desirable for persons 
of limited means to try experiments. The 
establishment of the Royal Agricultural So- 
ciety of England, and the Horticultural Society 
of London, was a great boon to farming and 
gardening ; not because they set men of all 
conditions playing all sorts of tricks with 
chemical manures, for that involved a certain 
quantity of good, with an uncertain quantity 
of evil ; but it was a boon, because men of 
capital, who could afford to lose crops, were 
led to try experiments and report the result, 
so that the poorer men who depended on their 
crops, and were sufferers when they had less 
than an average, could stand by while wealthy 
landholders did the experimental part of the 
business, and see the effect of novel practice 
before any risk was incurred by the less 
affluent lookers-on. It has, however, been the 
fashion among modern writers to condemn 
the "old jog-trot methods of our forefathers," 
and even to ridicule those who, as it was im- 
properly called, obstinately continued in the 
old track, while so many new ones were 
pointed out. The science, or rather the busi- 
ness of farming and gardening, according to 
the old school, was reduced to something like 
a certainty, as far as particular requirements 
of the ground were provided, and those 
requirements were answered by an average 
result. A man with a farm or garden that 
proved sufficiently productive to obtain for 
bim a general average profit, was in no degree 
blameable for waiting until some better, or 
cheaper, or more certain mode of producing 
the usual results was made manifest — not by 
reasoning, for the most specious reasoning 
will sometimes prove fallacious — not bj' any 
well-dressed theory, for theories often deceive 
even their authors — but by plain facts, which 
can deceive nobody ; then, and then only, is 
the man of business, whose all is in his trade, 
warranted in adopting new methods instead of 
old ones. We repudiate altogether the notion 
that a man who has practised the acknow- 
ledged rules with the ordinary share of suc- 
cess, should step out of his way at the bidding 
of theorists ; but we bail with pleasure the 
experiments of the wealthy, and the praise- 
worthy manner in which they publish their 
success or otherwise. It is only when the 
efficacy of novel practice has been fairly and 
full// proved, that the steady-going farmer, 
who has no money to spare, is called upon to 
entertain the change. But this does not 
affect improvements that are self-evident to 
all thinking men, and the change of system 
which relates to economy, and inattention to 
which bespeaks, or rather denotes, unpar- 
donable idleness. If a man is not obliged to 
adopt a new chemical manure because some- 
body recommends it, he is culpable when he 
wastes that which he understands the value 
of; yet how many dung-yards do we see, 
even among wealthy, or comparatively weal- 
thy, farmers, where the best juices of the 
manure are running to waste ? The dung 
receives all the rain, which washes away the 
virtue of it, and a black ditch in the neigh- 
bourhood receives one-half the value of the 
muck. This is a very common picture, and 
those who, after the admonition of many 
writers repeated during many years, continue 
the waste, deserve all that has been said of 
them, for they exhibit the worst evidence of 
ignorance and obstinacy. Not so the pi'udent 
man, who awaits the success of his richer 
neigbbour in agricultural experiments and 
costly speculations. Gentlemen farmers ex- 
pect but little from their business profits ; 
many esteem themselves fortunate if their 
farms bring them home the cost. They fol- 
low husbandry for amusement, and they, for 
the most part, like to speculate a little in 
novel applications, and novel practice. They 
can speculate on their sowing, because half a 
crop instead of a whole one does not ruin 
them. They can try guano in the place of 
stable dung, because, if they miss their mark, 
they have a right to do as they like with 
their own. If they are fortunate, and obtain 
an excellent crop, we hear of it in the news- 
papers, but if they fail, they do not publish 
their mistakes. It is, therefore, only from often 
repeated facts staring us in the face that we 
can draw a safe conclusion ; we may read of 
one man doing wonders, and it may seem very 
specious, but he may have omitted some facts 
