Review of Agricultural Experiments by the Right Hon Sir Thomas Dyke Acland

Abstract

THIS purports to be a critical review with suggestions, and is actually an attack upon the objects, aims, and results of the Sussex Association for the Improvement of Agriculture. The writer brings a long experience and a good business faculty to bear upon the working of a scientific organisation, and with some success so far as these instruments may be used as tests of the value of a delicate task requiring very special knowledge. The attitude of mind of the reviewer of these experimental results is one of scepticism. This he does not scruple to express in such terms as “we all felt rather sceptical” and “we suspected,” and “I have made in all four visits to Sussex to endeavour to get at the truth.” Again, “Well, thought I, this must be a queer kind of farming, perhaps I shall enlarge my experience. I think I have made out since that the local experience, however practical, may be the better of a little expansion.” With such introductory remarks we can hardly look for the cold judicial criticism that commands attention and carries conviction.

Review of Agricultural Experiments by the Right Hon. Sir Thomas Dyke Acland.

(London: Clowes and Co., 1885.)