CONCLUSION. THROUGHOUT the discussion of this subject, it has been a leading object with the author to illustrate the value of first principles, and to convince the farmer that in order to insure the highest success in cultivating his corn, as well as in using it with advantage, thoroughness of treatment is not merely important and useful, but that it is in fact the one indispensable condition, in which all others are included. This, though true enough in other branches of husbandry, is more emphatically so in the case of corn, on account of its remarkable capacity of development. Its sensitive nature feels and responds to every degree of treatment, rapidly unfolding and expanding under the genial influence of care and effort, springing forward at every touch of thoughtful culture, and, when the hand of skilful labor has apparently exhausted its capability of production, still showing that it has a further capacity of yield-only requiring additional labor and thought, and awaiting the approach of a new and higher method of culture. It has also been the constant endeavor of the wri ter to render the discussion of this subject as practical as possible, well aware that, without this quality, it could have but little interest or value for the farmer. Yet it should never be forgotten that in many instances sound practical conclusions are more readily arrived at by the aid of theory than in any other way. Indeed, all reasoning from the facts of experience to general conclusions is of necessity more or less theoretical; and however strong the tendency among cultivators to separate facts from theory, repudiating the latter as of little or no value, still it is only by preserving a proper connection between them that the greatest usefulness of each is found, and the most important results obtained. It must, however, be admitted that the prejudice prevailing among farmers against theoretical investigation is very easily accounted for and perhaps in some measure justified by the extravagant theories too often propounded by speculative writers-theories with scarcely a fact to rest upon, and certainly not entitled to the confidence of sensible men. It is not, therefore, difficult to understand the jealousy and distrust with which this class of speculations are apt to be viewed by agriculturists. Yet it does not follow, because some writers indulge in vague and shadowy abstractions, dignifying them with the name of theory, that all theoretical inquiry is necessarily unsound and useless. There is probably no principle nor method of investigation that is not liable to misapplication or abuse; but this consideration, while it furnishes good ground for cau tion in accepting results, is not a sufficient reason why such method of inquiry should be entirely ignored. Though it justifies careful discrimination between true and false reasoning, it does not warrant the rejection of sound conclusions merely because they are theoretically deduced. It often happens, that the theorist, by pushing his investigations in advance, prepares the way for the practical man, rendering his success easy and certain. When practice, therefore, repudiates all theory alike, without discriminating between the true and the false, it deprives itself of much valuable aid, and rejects a portion of the light that illuminates the path to success. In nearly all the highest achievements of human ability, thought precedes action, and theory is the precursor of valuable practical results. It was theoretical investigation that, a few years since, announced to the world a new planet in the solar system, in advance of its actual discovery; and the practical astronomer might have long swept his glass over the heavens in a fruitless search for the unknown wanderer, had not the speculative mind of Leverrier given to the instrument its true direction. It is clearly, then, the interest of the farmer to banish from his mind the narrow prejudice that discerns no truth outside of its own traditions, and repudiates all knowledge derived from books. It is clearly the dictate of practical wisdom to remember that the soundness of every theoretical investigation depends on its relation to facts, and that these rise in value and importance in proportion as they are illumi |