The very completeness of his prescribed studies--the exhaustive character
of the curriculum-naturally induced a frame of mind not to be satisfied
with anything short of absolute precision, and perhaps even apt to extend
itself into dilettanteism.

Like geology, the science of agriculture is so vast, it embraces so wide a
range, that one really hardly knows where it begins or ends. Phillip's
knowledge was universal. He understood all about astronomy, and had
prepared an abstract of figures proving the connection of sun-spots,
rainfall, and the price of wheat. Algebra was the easiest and at the same
time the most accurate mode of conducting the intricate calculations
arising out of the complicated question of food--of flesh formers and heat
generators--that is to say, how much a sheep increased in weight by
gnawing a turnip. Nothing could be more useful than botany-those who could
not distinguish between a dicotyledon and a monocotyledon could certainly
never rightly grasp the nature of a hedgerow. _Bellis perennis_ and
_Sinapis arvensis_ were not to be confounded, and _Triticum repens_ was a
sure sign of a bad farmer. Chemistry proved that too small a quantity of
silicate made John Barleycorn weak in the knee; ammonia, animal
phosphates, nitrogen, and so on, were mere names to many ignorant folk.
The various stages and the different developments of insect life were next
to be considered.

As to the soil and strata--the very groundwork of a farm--geology was the
true guide to the proper selection of suitable seed. Crops had been
garnered by the aid of the electric light, the plough had been driven by
the Gramme machine; electricity, then, would play a foremost part in
future farming, and should be studied with enthusiasm. Without mathematics
nothing could be done; without ornithological study, how know which bird
revelled on grain and which destroyed injurious insects? Spectrum analysis