GENETICS 315 



That bulletins or reports of progress shall be published at said stations at 

 least once in three months, one copy of which shall be sent to each newspaper 

 in the states or territories in which they are respectively located, and to such 

 individuals actually engaged in farming as may request the same and as far as 

 the means of the station will permit. 



It would be difficult to draft a condition more unfavorable to the 

 primary purpose of the Act, which was " to conduct original researches 

 or verify experiments on the physiology of plants and animals." I can 

 scarcely suppose the most prolific discoverer should be invited to de- 

 liver himself more than once a year. Not only does such a rule compel 

 premature publication — that nuisance of modern scientific life — but it 

 puts the investigator into a wrong attitude towards his work. He will 

 do best if he forget the public and the newspaper of his state or terri- 

 tory for long periods, and should only return to them when, after re- 

 peated verification, he is quite certain he has something to report. 



In this I am sure the best scientific opinion of all countries would 

 be agreed. If it is true that the public really demand continual scraps 

 of results, and can not trust the investigators to pursue research in a 

 reasonable way, then the public should be plainly given to understand 

 that the time for inaugurating researches in the public's name has not 

 arrived. Men of science have in some degree themselves to blame if 

 the outer world has been in any mistake on these points. It can not 

 be too widely known that in all sciences, whether pure or applied, re- 

 search is nearly always a very slow process, uncertain in production, 

 and full of disappointments. This is true, even in the new industries, 

 chemical and electrical, for instance, where the whole industry has 

 been built up from the beginning on a basis developed entirely by sci- 

 entific method and by the accumulation of precise knowledge. Much 

 more must any material advance be slow in the case of an ancient art 

 like agriculture, where practise represents the casual experience of un- 

 told ages and accurate investigation is of yesterday. Problems more- 

 over relating to unorganized matter are in their nature simpler than 

 those concerned with the properties of living things, a region in which 

 accurate knowledge is more difficult to attain. Here the research of the 

 present day can aspire no higher than to lay the foundation on which 

 the following generations will build. "When this is realized it will at 

 once be perceived that both those who are engaged in agricultural re- 

 search and those who are charged with the supervision and control of 

 these researches must be prepared to exercise a large measure of pa- 

 tience. 



The applicable science must be created before it can be applied. It 

 is with the discovery and development of such science that agricultural 

 research will for long enough best occupy its energies. Sometimes, 

 truly, there come moments when a series of obvious improvements in 



