337 
Mr. Fisher Hobbs, a name familiar to many farmers in the United States, 
proposed the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted by the club: 
“That the influence of science on agriculture has been to increase the produce 
of the soil, and that, as during the present century, great strides in agricultural 
improvement have taken place by the aid of chemistry, geology, and other de¬ 
partments of science, so by the happy union of practice with science, it is be¬ 
lieved that still greater advances will be effected.” 
* 
I apprehend that no one who is acquainted with the history of farming 
during the present century, can doubt for a moment the soundness of the con¬ 
clusion arrived at by the London Farmers’ Club. The advantages resulting 
from an union of practice with science are indeed so self-evident and indispu¬ 
table that “ it is now considered simply an impertinence in the eyes of every 
intelligent man to attempt a labored proof of the usefulness of science.” If we 
call to mind, for instance, the state of the sister art of gardening only twenty 
years ago, and compare it with what is now effected, and if we consider further 
that the great improvements made in the culture of garden plants is owing 
chiefly to gardeners as a class, having acquired a knowledge of the laws of 
vegetable life—what plants feed upon—whence they obtain their food—how it 
is digested and assimilated—what are the functions of roots, leaves, flowers 
of fruit, and what the action of light, heat and moisture on the development of 
the growing plant, we must be led to conclude, that knowledge of this kind 
should be valuable to the farmer also. Under this impression I venture to 
send you a necessarily brief outline of vegetable physiology, considered more 
especially with reference to the culture of agricultural plants. 
-“The power of man over nature,” says Sir John Herschell, “is limited by 
the one condition, it must be exercised in conformity with the laws of nature.” 
Before we can exercise that power with certainty and effect, we should under¬ 
stand these laws. It is true, indeed, that by the accumulated experience of ages, 
farmers are able to produce successful results without knowing or being able 
to explain the cause on which the success of their operations depends. The 
early Egyptians, long before the sexual distinctions of plants were understood, 
had somehow discovered that in order to have perfect fruit on their Date Palms, 
which have the male and female flowers on separate plants, it was requisite to 
bring the male flowers to the fruit-bearing trees. Their knowledge was em¬ 
pirical; they knew nothing about the parts of the plant concerned in the pro¬ 
cess, or by what means the result was produced. They consequently, in like 
22 
