State Convention—Opening Remarks. 
143 
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it has been for each succeeding generation, and for farmers in¬ 
dividually to experiment for themselves, and much has been lost to 
the farming community for want of more thorough interchange of 
experienced experiments, methods, and results. 
The press in a measure has come to the assistance of agriculture, 
not only the agricultural press, but the general newspaper press of 
the country, to-day, are lending material aid to the advancement 
of agriculture. Farmers 1 clubs have sprung up all over the land, 
and last, though not least, agricultural conventions have been held. 
Experiments, in order to be of any value, should be continued 
through a series of years to demonstrate their truth or falibility, 
and it is only by the application of science to practical agriculture, 
and comparing the two, that we are to look for success in the future. 
In the past, too much time has been wasted and too many theories 
have been laid down, having their foundation only upon an imper¬ 
fect data. Conclusions have been drawn which in many instances 
are but little better than assumptions. Wrangling and bitter al¬ 
tercation have been had over trifling affairs which science and 
practical agriculture should have at once solved as u whether wheat 
ash turned to chess or not, 11 or whether the farmer should butcher 
his hogs in the first or last quarter of the moon; but we are at last 
making advances in agriculture, which has for its object the com¬ 
bining of scientific knowledge with practical agriculture, and for 
this purpose we must have a thorough understanding and compar¬ 
ing of practical experience with scientific agriculture. In the past, 
science has endeavored to teach agriculture independent of practical 
results. They attempted at one time to lay down the rules that 
they could tell by a chemical analysis of the soils what was neces¬ 
sary for the production of a crop. This has failed. Also, they 
have endeavored, arbitrarily, to teach us that science alone could 
point out the way to success, but this we deny. The practical 
agriculturalist must strike hands with the scientific man and pur¬ 
sue their investigations together. More than forty years ago the 
practical agriculturalist had demonstrated that blue-vitriol was a 
specific for smut in wheat. The scientist might have known that 
it had certain properties valuable for that purpose, but it remained 
for the practical agriculturalist to demonstrate that it is a specific, 
and it has been applied for nearly thirty years, with similar results. 
I have seen 4,000 bushels of wheat grown on the same farm in the 
