no SCIENCE PROGRESS 



have been required. Advice is asked when it is already too late to carry it out, 

 and the capacity of the advisers is often open to question. 



What is wanted to carry out thoroughly the policy of maximum production is 

 the adequate combination of science with the art of farming, and this can only 

 be attained by the liberal and benevolent assistance of the State. There are 

 innumerable problems in farming which require solution, and which the farmer 

 himself has not time to undertake. Tillage experiments, for example, the de- 

 struction of insect and fungoid pests, to mention but a few, all need investigation. 

 The scientific expert, however, must be a somewhat exceptional man. In order 

 to have a comprehensive grasp of his subject he should have had some general 

 farming experience, for an expert without practice is infinitely more detrimental 

 than a practical farmer without science. The scientific expert receives a fixed 

 salary and can therefore evolve any number of schemes without being compelled 

 to practise them on the corpus vile of his own pocket. With the farmer it is 

 otherwise. He is bound to follow that course which pays best, irrespective of its 

 merit and demerit from the purely scientific aspect. He does not require to be 

 bombarded with advice from gentlemen whose creed may be summed up in 

 the phrase : " I believe in the calory with the big C." 



Many more experimental stations are therefore required, and these should be 

 entirely State supported, the profit or loss on the undertaking being retained or 

 borne by the State. The staffing of these establishments should be most carefully 

 considered. Not infrequently they are like a den of Gallios who care for none of 

 the practical difficulties of the farmer and are entirely out of sympathy with him. 

 They dictate a course of action as if giving the law from Sinai, and the result is 

 merely an estrangement between two classes of the community who are mutually 

 necessary to one another. Agricultural journalists, who filch the writings of 

 scientific men, are particularly useful in producing such a feeling of distrust, for the 

 natural conclusion is that with all the knowledge apparently possessed by such a 

 writer he would do far better farming, were he capable of it. 



The influence of such establishments should be educational in the highest 

 degree. They should be so conducted that neighbouring farmers will be anxious 

 for their advice, and the results of their experiments should be published in a 

 form accessible to the farmer. Such a book as Dr. Russell's on Manures is 

 atypical example of the way in which such results should be written. 



True it is that the practice of the very best farmers leaves but little for science 

 to teach them, yet the majority are very far from having attained this degree of 

 excellence. The farmer's outlook would be widened, and, generally speaking, the 

 wider his outlook the more adaptable he is and the more ready to welcome 

 improvements. The number of these experimental stations would depend on the 

 size of the county, but there should be one at least in every county. Rothamsted 

 is a pattern for all the world, and curiously enough, we have not plagiarised 

 ourselves overmuch. The practice of ejecting from their farms those who, in the 

 opinion of a motley committee composed of lawyers, auctioneers, and ex- farmers, 

 are guilty of bad husbandry, contains a gleam of soundness, despite the crudity of 

 the execution. If, after the war, we are really to aim at high production, the 

 responsibility of the farmer will be greatly enhanced, and it will certainly be 

 the business of those who control agriculture to see that adequate capital is 

 possessed by the farmer and that his practice is not deleterious to the interests 

 of his neighbours, and consequently to the community in general. 



This brings us to the consideration of the nature of a body which shall control 

 the agricultural policy of the country. Before all things agriculture must be 



