the president appears, and with him the lecturer. There is a hum of
greeting; the minutes are read; the president introduces the professor,
and the latter stands forth to read his paper--'Science, the Remedy for
Agricultural Depression.'

Farmers, he pointed out, had themselves only to blame for the present
period of distress. For many years past science had been like the voice
crying in the wilderness, and few, a very few only, had listened. Men had,
indeed, come to the clubs; but they had gone away home again, and, as the
swine of the proverb, returned to their wallowing in the mire. One blade
of grass still grew where two or even three might be grown; he questioned
whether farmers had any real desire to grow the extra blades. If they did,
they had merely to employ the means provided for them. Everything had been
literally put into their hands; but what was the result? Why, nothing--in
point of fact, nothing. The country at large was still undrained. The very
A B C of progress had been neglected. He should be afraid to say what
proportion of the land was yet undrained, for he should be contradicted,
called ill names, and cried down. But if they would look around them they
could see for themselves. They would see meadows full of rank, coarse
grass in the furrows, which neither horse nor cattle would touch. They
would see in the wheat-fields patches of the crop sickly, weak, feeble,
and altogether poor; that was where the water had stood and destroyed the
natural power of the seed. The same cause gave origin to that mass of
weeds which was the standing disgrace of arable districts.

But men shut their eyes wilfully to these plain facts, and cried out that
the rain had ruined them. It was not the rain--it was their own intense
dislike of making any improvement. The _vis inertiae_ of the agricultural
class was beyond the limit of language to describe. Why, if the land had
been drained the rain would have done comparatively little damage, and