WnAT HAS SCIENCE DONE FOR FARMERS? 
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In short, the tendency of our time is to reduce everything to a 
science. And we find this science to be opposed to something 
which we call practice; seeminglj^- a contest between the two, as 
though one was antagonistic to the other, when possibly if the mists 
were cleared away which surround the contestants, they both may 
be found wearing the true blue of a common cause, with objects 
and aims the same. 
Then we have chosen for our theme to-night the “Farm,” and 
ask. Has science done anything to benefit the farmer and dairyman? 
We sometimes hear people sneer at what they call book farming, 
and ridicule the idea that a man can be a scientific farmer, when in 
fact, what they call science and book farming is only practice re¬ 
duced to a system, and the farmer and dairyman coming so close 
in contact with nature, should of all men become most familiar with 
nature’s laws. Husbandry, or the rearing of cattle and sheep, was 
man’s most primitive occupation. Fie knew the effect, but did not 
« 
give much thought as to the why of the law, or the cause which 
produced certain effects. Nature has furnished us with the grasses, 
and the animal machine for converting them into a more concen¬ 
trated form, called milk, which nature alone can furnish. Here, 
then, we are profited by the works of nature in our fields and in our 
animals. 
But if we go one step further and wish to convert the milk into 
another substance such as butter or cheese, we in one sense become 
a scientist. Natural science, you say, because we do it by a nat¬ 
ural law. Then what is science? It is simply knowing, and the 
science we meet with most frequently is the science of understand¬ 
ing nature in her varied forms. And to reach this natural science, 
we must ask of every object which comes before us: What is it? 
How came it where it is? What can be done with it? And the 
correct answer to all these questions composes the whole of what 
is termed natural science. If we ask, then, what has a farmer or 
dairyman to do with science, it would be the same as to ask, what 
has a man who works by natural laws to do with a knowledge of 
those laws? For example, the dairyman’s aim and object is to pro¬ 
duce milk, and all things considered, he who produces most milk 
from his herds is most successful. But how shall he increase the 
yield of milk? Perhaps he may improve his pastures by sowing a 
variety of grasses in place of only one kind. Then he profits by 
