Norwich bulletin., 1920-07-30
water in this latitude. And that is not in

water in this latitude. And that is not in my line.
 Being rather practical minded old hayseed myself I have wondered much, While standing in the barn door watch ing the rain come down, where really truly scientific farming" would come in, such a time. The more I think about it. the more fixed become in my conviction that there is no such thing as science of agriculture
 famous scientist once put a great truth in homely form when he remarked that astronomers could calculate the or bits of Jupiter and Polaris, but no human being could ever calculate the orbit of a fly. See the point?
 Science can deduce flaws which gov ern the mos>Saepts of reasonably regular occurrences. But what science thus far developed can calculate the conduct of bugs and bacteria, of droughts and del uges? There probably is a law which governs them, but nobody has eve1~ yet got near enough to it to sprinkle salt on it's tail. So far as we are concerned in practical farm working, there is apparent no more sequence or system in such mat ters than in the aimless flight of a fly.
 None of us any longer attempt to tell what the fly is going to do next We wait till it lights and then swat it, if we can. X But we can't swat" the me teorology Of the universe even when it lights on us with forty million fly power. There is an art of farming. See die tionary for difference between 'art'' and ! science" It would take mighty smart man about thirteen ordinary human lives to learn that art alone. And general sci ence may and often does enable us to turn new lights on farming a2roblems, We farmers would be wasteful of opportunity and unmindful of responsibility if we neg lected any source of information or re- fused any promising offer of assistance. But the longer I live and work on the farm the more skepticaI I become of the existence of any science of agriculture. Or of any 'orbit'' for the flight of a fly It's an art, as has been said. It must be learned as every other art is learned; partly from teachers. partly iron, books. but chiefly from practice. No artist or artisan. learning art or trade, will disdain or ignore old established rules. at least during his apprenticeship. Nor can the farmer afford to.
 But if he ties himself up to such things and attempts to limit himself by them ; if he tries to formulate the unknown or map out the undiscovered. he is inviting trouble. He might as well try to grade motor highway over fogbank or pre- dict the orbit of that aforementioned fly It is barely possible that, in some future of vastly increased knowledge, some su- perman by the aid of comic sections and differential calculus and various other mathematical profundities may be able to predict beforehand where the fly will light and how it'll get there.
 But at present it can't be did.
 Similarly it is barely possible that some future superman may sometime de- velop out of the beggarly clements at hand a real science of farming.
 But thus far it hasn't been done
 Farming under existing conditions is something of an art, something of gam ble something of fishing trip, and an unlimited amount of dust, mud and per spiration.
 THE FARMER