GENETICS 317 



So long as a train of inquiry continues to extend, and new knowledge, 

 that most precious commodity, is coming in the enterprise will not be 

 in vain and it will be usually worth while to pursue it. 



The relative value of the different parts of knowledge in their appli- 

 cation to industry is almost impossible to estimate, and a line of work 

 should not be abandoned until it leads to a dead end, or is lost in a 

 desert of detail. 



"We have, not only abroad, but also happily in this country, several 

 private firms engaged in various industries — I may mention especially 

 metallurgy, pharmacy and brewing — who have set an admirable ex- 

 ample in this matter, instituting researches of a costly and elaborate 

 nature, practically unlimited in scope, connected with the subjects of 

 their several activities, conscious that it is only by men in close touch 

 with the operations of the industry that the discoveries can be made, 

 and well assured that they themselves will not go unrewarded. 



Let us on our part beware of giving false hopes. We know no 

 bamiony " of sovran use against all enchantments, mildew blast, or 

 damp." Those who are wise among us do not even seek it yet. Why 

 should we not take the farmer and gardener into our fullest confidence 

 and tell them this? I read lately a newspaper interview with a fruit- 

 farmer who was being questioned as to the success of his undertaking, 

 and spoke of the pests and difficulties with which he had had to con- 

 tend. He was asked whether the Board of Agriculture and the scien- 

 tific authorities were not able to help him. He replied that they had 

 done what they could, that they had recommended first one thing and 

 then another, and he had formed the opinion that they were only in an 

 experimental stage. He was perfectly right, and he would hardly have 

 been wrong had he said that in these things science is only approach- 

 ing the experimental stage. This should be notorious. There is noth- 

 ing to extenuate. To affect otherwise would be unworthy of the dig- 

 nity of science. 



Those who have the means of informing the public mind on the 

 state of agricultural science should make clear that though something 

 can be done to help the practical man already, the chief realization of 

 the hopes of that science is still very far away, and that it can only be 

 reached by long and strenuous effort, expended in many various direc- 

 tions, most of which must seem to the uninitiated mere profitless wand- 

 ering. So only will the confidence of the laity be permanently assured 

 towards research. 



Nowhere is the need for wide views of our problems more evident 

 than in the study of plant-diseases. Hitherto this side of agriculture 

 and of horticulture, though full of possibilities for the introduction of 

 scientific method, has been examined only in the crudest and most 

 empirical fashion. To name the disease, to burn the affected plants 



