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 detected the adulteration of valuable compounds; the photographer recorded the exact action of the trotting horse; the telephone might convey orders from one end of an estate to the other; and thus you might go through the whole alphabet, the whole cyclopaedia of science, and apply every single branch to agriculture.
It is to be hoped that Phillip's conversational account of his studies has been correctly reproduced here.

The chemical terms look rather weak, but the memory of an ordinary listener can hardly be expected to retain such a mass of technicalities.

He had piles of strongly-bound books, the reward of successful examinations, besides diplomas and certificates of proficiency.