e most
important branch of industry--agriculture--the labors of the purely
scientific man have as yet borne but scant fruit; whilst the unaided
efforts of the husbandman have reclaimed from sterility extensive
tracts, and caused them to "blossom as the rose." That practical men
should have done so much, and scientific men so little, for agriculture,
may easily be explained. Countless millions of men, during many
thousands of years, have incessantly been occupied in improving the
processes of mechanical agriculture, which, as an _art_, has
consequently been brought to a high degree of perfection: but scientific
agriculture is a creation of almost our own time, and the number of its
cultivators is, and always has been, very small; all its theories cannot,
therefore, justly claim that degree of confidence which, as a rule, is
only reposed in the opinions founded on the experience of practical
workers in the field and in the feeding-house. Still, the farmer has
derived a great amount of useful information from the chemist and
physiologist; and they alone can explain to him the causes of the
various phenomena which the different branches of his art present. There
was a time when it was the fashion of the man of science to look down
with contempt, from the lofty pedestal on which he placed himself, upon
the lessons of practical experience read to him by the cultivator of the
soil; whilst at the same time the farmer treated as foolish visionaries
those who applied the teachings of science to the improvement of their
art. But this time has happily passed away. The scientific man no longer
despises the knowledge of the mere farmers, but turns to good account
the information derivable from their experience; whilst the farmer, on
the other side, has ceased to speak in contemptuous terms of mere "book
learning." It is to this happy combination of the theorist with the
practical man that the recent remarkable advance in agriculture is
chiefly due; and to it we may confidently look for improvement in the
economic production of meat and butter, and for the enlargement of our
knowledge of the relative value of food substances.

STATEMENT OF THE NUMBER OF LIVE STOCK IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

---------+------------------------------------+
| Enumerated, 1866. |
+-----------+------------+-----------+
| Cattle. | Sheep. | Pigs. |
+-----------+------------+---