THE CULTIVATOR 
83 
When animals are suffered to go upon the field, many 
plants are necessarily trodden under foot and bruised, 
or partly buried in the earth. In this state they are 
greatly disrelished by -cattle, and are suffered to run 
to waste. This eircumstance never could occur if the 
practice of cutting were adopted. Cattle will eat 
with great avidity many plants, if cut and given to 
them in the yard, which they never would touch while 
growing in the field. It is well known that when ani¬ 
mals are exposed to the sun in the open air, they are 
not only greatly incommoded on many occasions by 
the heat, but are also annoyed by swarms of flies, 
gnats and hornets, which obviously tends to impede 
their thriving. The proportionate increase of manure 
obtained by this system evinces its superiority over 
pasturing; and manure is the life and soul of good 
farming. This manure no doubt is as good as that 
which is produced in winter. Cows fed in this way 
will give a greater quantity of milk, and increase in 
weight faster than when they run in the field. They 
are less subject to injuries, and do not suffer by the 
heat. John McKee. „ Bristol , Vt. 
Theories and Experience—Root Culture. 
Messrs. Editors —I have read carefully the com¬ 
munication of G. E. H. in ablate number of the Coun¬ 
try Gentleman, entitled “ Theories and Experience.” 
A subscriber to your weekly paper, and a constant 
reader of it, I acknowledge that I have failed to find 
any evidence in its columns of a restricted policy, and 
should he very sorry to see it committed to any posi¬ 
tion adverse to either theoretical or experimental truth. 
A practical farmer, I feel daily the want of more light. 
From whatever quarter it may come, I would receive 
it gratefully. 
But I cannot do without theories. Every experiment 
is a step into the unknown, and must be based on some 
assumption. I have had for every real acre of my 
farm, a corresponding imaginary or theoretical one for 
years. The theoretical condition of these acres has 
never been j.ust their actual condition, nor do I believe 
that it ever will be ; and yet I think that year after 
year the newer theory is a little nearer the truth. 
Again, these notions are a little different from those 
held by (so far as I know,) anybody else. Now after 
frankly admitting that these conceits are undoubtedly 
erroneous in many particulars, and that I am alone in 
holding them to .their full extent, it may seem strange 
that anything should be urged in extenuation j but 
.1. All the world has had these “baseless fabrics.” 
Those truths which are now at the foundation of Na¬ 
tural Science, were once “ hatched in the heated brains 
of philosophers.” Sir Isaac Newton’s great labors were 
to prove a favorite theory—a fortunate guess 
2. No two men have just the same notions—hence, 
though I am alone with my crotchets, I am not singu¬ 
lar. 
3. I am fully persuaded that I could do but little 
without them, though they be like the Scotchman’s 
head, whish he lost in the times of the Rebellion—“poor i 
enough to be sure, but then poor-fellow, ail the head he 
had.” 
If then these theories are necessary, continually 
•changing though they be—if, in the endless variety of 
time and change, which happen to all men, we are of¬ 
ten called upon to act in unprecedented circumstances, 
I need scarcely conclude that he whose theories are 
nearest the truth will be most successful, nor urge that 
we should form them with most scrupulous care. 
But what is theory essentially? Says G. E. H., 
“ The baseless fabric of a vision.” True, and yet with 
the growing dawn wreathing itself into successive 
shapes, until witli the perfect light it has transformed 
itself into the adamantine temple of truth. An emi¬ 
nent man of the present time has compared them to 14 
glass windows. Some things look distorted through 
most of them, arid yet'they are certainly a great con¬ 
venience. 
But if theories were of no greater use, they are of 
great advantage for the classification of facts—a string 
on which the pearls of experience may he strung, each 
in its proper place, or an index to a man’s mental pos¬ 
sessions. 
Holding these sentiments, the value which I venture 
to ascribe to chemistry as the foundation of true agri¬ 
cultural science, may be readily seen. There are un¬ 
doubtedly errors in its premises, (and what science in 
its infancy had none ?) many of our deductions are pro¬ 
bably imperfectly drawn. There are pompous preten¬ 
ders who wear its livery and claim for themselves and 
their doctrines infallibility. And yet I believe that 
agricultural truth must yet find, as mineral truth has 
found, and as medical truth is finding, a home in the 
formulas of chemistry. 
Organic chemistry claims to be founded on the Ba¬ 
conian theory, which G. E. H. so justly eulogises, and 
is certainly in eminent contra-distinction to the “ in¬ 
structive principles of our farmers,” in very many 
cases. It claims that the term u vital principle,” like 
its great ante-type phlogiston, enshrouds g multitude 
of facts that should be arranged and classified, like any 
other natural truths, and that the Baconian laws must 
he inexorably carried even into the economy of living 
things. 
I am aware that it is not the province of the Country 
Gentleman to deal in hypotheses—that its mission is 
to promulgate established truths, and yet feel assured 
from its character, and the history of its predecessor, 
that as fast as new truth becomes worthy of incorpora¬ 
tion with the old, it will not fail to furnish it to its rea¬ 
ders. 
So much for theory, and now a practical word about 
root crops. I sowed my turneps and carrots last year 
two feet apart in drills in the field—hoed them twice, 
and then plowed them with a light wood work, made 
like an old fashioned bull plow, with a block of wood 
to run in the furrow. The wood work was made to 
run just to the pitch of the large east plow. A wrought 
ir@n point, long and sharp, and cutting ten inches 
width of furrow, did the work of the hoe subsequently 
