INTRODUCTION. Ki

this fcience which are doubtful or not well underftood, much knowledge, care,

and circumfpection is conftantly neceffary on the part of the experimenter, to guard againft every thing that may in the leaft degree influence the refult: for if this point be not carefully attended to, very different conclufions may be drawn from the fame experiment,.The farmer, from his not having been accuftomed to that accuracy and precifion which is requifite in this mode of inquiry, is often but indifferently prepared to avoid errors, which may be produced by a variety of unfufpected caufes, which’ confiderably influence the refults of his trials. On this account the inductions that are drawn from the experimental attempts of even real farmers can feldom be fo fully depended upon as may at firft fight be fuppofed: where due care and attention are befiowed, this is, however, the beft and moft certain means of increafing our knowledge, and extending the bounds of the art.

The want of a better and more complete knowledge of the different branches of fcience which are intimately connected with that of agriculture, among practical farmers, has not been lefS prejudicial to the improvement of hufbandry, by the incorrectnefs and inattention which it may have caufed in the afcertaining of par- ticular facts and circumftances in the profeffion itfelf, than by the prejudice and attachment which it has engendered to particular cuftoms, practices and methods ofmanagement. The minds of thofe who ought to have been the moft capable of enlarging the bounds of agricultural knowledge have frequently by this means been fettered, and kept from taking any new or particular views of the various objects and operations of hufbandry. And this is perhaps one of the caufes of farmers having proceeded fo much in the fame track fince the commencement of the art.

That agriculture is capabie of being advanced to a confiderable flate of improve- ment, by a more correct and general application of fuch principles and reafonings as are borrowed from other fciences with which it is conneéted, is extremely pro- bable from the fuccefs and progrefs that has been made by the little that has been already done in this way, as well as from what may have been obferved to take place in confequence of fuch application in other arts.

After this curfory view of the principal caufes which appear to have impeded the advancement of agriculture as a fcience, we may proceed to thofe that operate againft its extenfion and improvement as a practical art. Impediments of this

kind are however fo exceedingly numerous and complicated, that it is not intended a2