Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1870-01-27
rHE RUTLAND HERALD.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 81, 1870.
Am Address Delivered before the
Vermont Dairyman's Association,
at 80. Albans, Thursday, January
goth, 1870.


at 81. Albans, Thursday, January
goth, 1870.
BYsMIDDLEroN GOLDSMITH, 81. D.. OF RUTLAND
Mr.. President and Gentlemen :-Ir
proceeding to treat briefly Of the objects
which, it seems to me, come within th,
province of this association, as well of th,
methods to be pursued in our investiga
tons, desire to say word preliminari
ly, in regard to the true relation existing
between scientific and practical agricul
ture. Indeed, so much of sort Of al
most inherited distrust exists in the minds
of practical men in regard to scientific, OF
cook farming as it is termed, that it ap
pears to me to be worth our while to ex
anime the matter little to see how fal
this is simple prejudice.
Science is no heritage Of the rich, M
} exclusive domain of the highly educated
classes. Nor does it by any necessity per
TAN specially TO the abstruse, or to thai
ghich is difficult of apprehension.
Every farmer who makes an expert
ment. no matter how slmple-slmple as
thebquestion of deep or shallow ploughing
the spreading of manure on the surface
or ploughing it in, is in reality pursuing
scientific end, and by scientific pro-
cesses. A man unused to observations
makes them carelessly carelessly in this
that he does not railways, if ever, take into
consideration all the facts which may in
fuence the determination. Thus a man
ploughing sandy loan deeply and clay
loan specifically, does not make two
trials at all comparable. Nor even would
the trial on two pieces of clay loan, OF
two of sandy loan, be of any benefit for
any purpose, except as to the compare
tive value of the two methods in the par
ticular field or piece of land. To be of
general value, the experimenter must take
into consideration the underlying soil the
depth of the soil its fertility the amount
of natural moisture the season rainfall,
and mechanical methods. The trained
scientific cultivator would consider all these
things and more. More than this, the
trained scientist records as well as observes
carefully, and commonly is less dogmalic
in matters OF opinion. The trained scien-
fist often searches for absolute facts, not
relative. Thus the pure scientiest wishes
to determine the absolute influence of deep
ploughing in given soil the farmer the
relative influence. In other words the
Enan of science asks, does deep ploughing
increase the burden of crops ? The farm
err asks does it pay?
The scientiest embraces in his enquiry
the complex elements of the proposition,
the common observer the simple and OBJ
vious. Something of this difference comes
of habits of thought, something of mental
culture but after all, the labor of the
one ought to and does to some extent,
supplement the other.
Agar /; abstract, scientific facts COM
monty seek and find their solution in the
laboratory, and this scene does not pre-
sent the opportunities for those large prac-
teal experiments upon which industrial
enterprises are based nor have those en-
gagged in pure science the propelling mo-
tive of interest to make such money sac
rifces as are usually involved in economic
questions. Thus, science evolves and set
Ties the general law that the consumption
and appropriation of food has some ref
erance to the temperature of the blood,
and, therefore, we all may infer that
chickens (since their blood is warmer) re-
quire more pounds of corn to make a
pound of poultry, than an OK needs to
make pound of beef. Here the econo-
MO question is Appropriated only and
to-day it is for the practical man to meas
ure this matter on the farm.
again, most of the labors of scientists
are directed to the ascertainment of the
exact while the results of farm expert
ments IN the very nature of the ease,
must be only representative. This APP
Proclamation can be made to lessen its
distance from the exact truth, only, by en-
larging experiments often repeated.
Thus the lactometer shows the difference
in cream between the milk of a Hereford
and an Attorney. The result reaches
nearer the truth if the observation relates
to the milk of 80 COWS of each breed.
Still nearer if the trial is repeated /; still
nearer if repeated under differing circum-
stances of food and climate and still
further if to the lactometer is added the
test Of the dairy.
Again, amongst the seekers for truth
there are those who reach after abstract
facts, and there are those who seize upon
the abstract and apply them to useful,
practical results. The former bave the
higher aim, the second apparently the
more useful. Yet we can hardly compare
the functions of the two They are like
the teeth and Slomach--inseparable III
yerdependent. Abstract science pushes its
investigations without reference to their
immediate usefulness. Applied science
harnesses discovered truths to the car of
human progress. Abstract science is the
mother of the useful arts. She carries
within her teeming womb, all unconscious
by mayhap, the germs Of all applied in
dustries. How many apparently unim-
portant facts shelved for years in the
scientists laboratory, have come i'll the
end to solve some great riddle, or estab-
hsh some vast economy. Did the first
man who toyed wiSa glass prism, or
who noticed the orderly marshalng off
the decomposed rays of sunshine, dream
that this little instrument would come to
tell us of what the sun and moon and
stars are made. Or did he who first dis
covered tbs elasticity of steam, dream that
by it theegorld's commerce and manufac-
lures would in the end be moved. This
same storehclse is rich in formative ma
terial Of late the chemists have told us
that light, heat, electricity and force are
one--that is, that each can be transformed
into the other. Some of these transfer
nations are now made, as in the steam
Engine heat is transformed into motion.
The search @. applied science is for fac,
tors, machines which effect these transfer
nations, and effect them economically. In
the steam engines, only one part in about
twenty Of the heat is transformed into
force, the rest is lost. Will we ever see
an engine run at one-twenlieth of the
present rate Of fuel Will we ever see
the suns light turning grist mill? Will
We ever see the north Mind roasting our
turkeys Verify we will for already has
the wheel been turned by sunlight, and