Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1869-10-19

There are some questions which can be full
, answered in the laboratory, such as the com
position of manure and its purity or impurity
There are others which can be answered b.
experiments with growing plants in fower-pot
or upon quite small paSch of ground.
: There are others, and there of great impor
tance, which are beyond the means of any bu
the practical farmers of the country.
There are still others, most important of all
which demand the united labors of the chemis
and the farmer, or rather OF many chemists anc
many farmers, working together with a clea
mutual understanding of what they want tt
find out, how they mean to go about examining
/ the question, aud how the results are to be dis
cussed and compared.
1t Is true that every year sees an immense
number of experiments made by farmers, and
many OF them made with good deal of pains
and iabor-the agricultural journals areafull oi
reports OF the results-but unfortunately great
deal of the trouble thus taken is wasted as fal
as any positive increase of our knowledge is
concerned
! Too many experiments are undertaken with
out clear understanding of what is to be de.
| termlned, without proper information as to what
others have already done in the same direction
and what remains to be found out; withou,
|
to get at the facts in the simplest and most GER
tain manner, without such accuracy as tc
| weights, measures &c., as alone makes results
reliable, and, above all, without the adoption OF
such form OF experiment as admits of fcOmpar-
ison of the results with those which others have
obtained In proof that this is true appeal to
your own experience-what an amazing diff
ference and variety of opinion do you find in
any gathering of ten or twenty intelligent farm
| ers, who meet to talk over the results of their
respective experience of any new agricultural
material or method-how difficult it is to sum
up all that they have learned by their experience
in the.form of distinct general statement. Yet
| this ought not to be so-the laws of nature are
in themselves fixed and in7ariabe-the truth
exists, if We can only find it out-and every ex-
| pertinent, and still more the united experience
| of many persons, devoting themselves to the
| same pursuit. ought to teach us something, to
make some addition to the stores of knowledge
| OF those who have gone before US. i,
Having trespassed upon your kind attention
at such length by thus urging 10 general terms
| the importance of united effort for the progress
OF scientific agriculture L will but sum up the
two or three practical suggestions which seem
most readily to grow out of the subject as it has
been discussed.
| In the first place, it appears clearly desirable
| that farmers and those who are to become such,
should recognize as part of the training which
Is to render them tlt not only for successfully
practising the art they have chosen as their
pursuit tor lite, but also contributing to the i'm
provement of that art, the study-up to a Ger
tain point at least-of the facts and laws of na-
ture, which alone are capable of throwing intel
ligent light upon their pursuit.
1t is hard to understand why the young man
who is to devote himself to agriculture shall
form the exception.to the generaisrule that some
some training in the broad principles upon any
profession or avocation depends should precede
the actual practice Of such avocation itself If
a man proposes TO make his son lawyer, he
does not turn hlm loose In courtroom to at
tempt at once the pleading of cases, there must
first be much hard study of treatses upon the
general theory of law.
If lad is to become physician he must 90
to work upon his anatomy and physiology, and
aim at acquiring general knowledge of The
structure and laws of the human frame 1t
would be almost unfortunate for him self as
for his patients If without any such preparation
he Were to be brought to the bedside of the
sick and allowed to treat disease by mere blind
experience. Even if he should see the prac-
tice Of others better educated than himself, he
would be Incapable OF really understanding Ii ;,
or OF Initiating 1t when any novel complication
Of symptoms presented themselves
la like manner if man is to be an engi-
neer, an architect, miner, or successful man
ufacl urer, he must study the work before hinl
ere be begins practically to engage in it.
But 1t is too commonly the case that young
man goes upon the farm with no special ed
ucation whatever tending to fit him tor the in
telligent practice of agrIcuture-he knows
nothing clearly Of the composition, the air, the
water, the soil and the manure which are the
materials out Of which he Is 10 make his crops ];
he knows scarcely anything of the manner in
which those crops grow, or of the wonderful
and beautiful laws Of veg. table Development
he is equally ignorant Of the principles that
govern the life of the animals he is to raise and
to use. All that he can do is to notice the
practice of others, and 10 initiate it as closely
as possible not knowing the true reasons for
what he thus learns as matter or routine, nor
knowing any good reason for trying one thing
rather than another. if he wish to make any ef-
fort at improvement. Such man is not only
incapable OF orig. mating OF any improved meth
DDS himself, or of meeting any novel difficult
| ties that come in his way, but he is even inca
pable of usefuy receiving from others the as
sistance which is yielded by the progress of
scientific research.
1t is useless to try to explain any particular
question to one who Is ignorant of the whole
subject in its scientific aspect-to whom car
bonlc acid, ammonia, phosphoric acid, &C., are
simply hard words with no distinct idea at
tached to them, instead OF standing for real
things that he has seen and smelIed aud tasted
and examined, and which he knows exist all
around him, silently building up before his eyes
the wheat and corn and cotton and tobacco, the
production of which is his business in lite.
Please observe carefully that | am not at all
advocating the idea that scientific study alone
will ever make successful farmer, Or that such
study should even form very large part of his
training. Farming is an art, and as In the
| case OF every other art, there is no way to ac-
qulre 1t but by a regular practical apprehen-
ticeship in the field. If the homely old saying
be true,
''He that By the plough would thrive
Himself must either hold or drive"
it is especially true in the beginning. The young
farmer must undoubtedly learn how with his
own hands both to hold and drive the plough,
and how all other practical details of the art
| are to be carried on. But the requirement OF
| this practical knowledge will not be In the least
| intertered with by his having previously learned
something Of the principles upon which he Is
| to work.
Sir Humphrey Davy put this point very
! clearly in the following passage from the nrst
of his lectures in England on agricultural
| chemistry, now more than fifty years ago: Ii
| has been said, and sundoubtedly With great
| truth, that philosophical chemist would prob
ably make very Improbable business OF farm
| lug; and this would certainly be the case II ne
We're mere philosophical chemist, and unless
| he had served his apprenticeship to the prac-
| tlce OF the art as we'll as to the theory. but
there is reason to believe that he would be q
/ Il