go NATURAL SCIENCE. August. 



difficulties have been encountered which must be overcome before 

 there can be any question of the mercantile utilisation of the process 

 in question." But he also states that the result of experiments 

 " increases the prospect of ultimate success." 



This is only another straw showing that the wind is blowing un- 

 favourably to the simple pursuit of agriculture. The sails of farmers 

 and fruit-growers, of gardeners and foresters, must be trimmed scien- 

 tifically if the ship is to move. In earlier times " to plough and sow, 

 to reap and mow " according to traditional methods was sufficient. 

 In a good season the kindly earth yielded abundantly; in a bad season 

 a hungry population gave a better price. But now, facilities of 

 transport equalise, and therefore minimise, the varying results of the 

 weather all over the globe. And still more, the rapid advance of 

 scientific methods is dogging the heels of slow-moving Nature. Natural 

 products of every kind are being produced more rapidly, more cheaply, 

 and more certainly by scientific aid. " Protection," " Bimetallism," 

 and a dozen other remedies may be beneficial or harmful ; it is not 

 within our scope to discuss them. But we lay down an inevitable 

 and indisputable proposition. Unless the agriculturists of England 

 and her colonies choose to train themselves in scientific methods and 

 to banish for ever their easy opportunism, our agriculture will be 

 ruined. 



Science and Art. 

 If Science renders service to those that supply the practical needs 

 of the world, no less can she aid the ministers of its more ethereal 

 pleasures. The debt that the fine arts owe to Science was dwelt upon 

 a few years ago by Dr. E. du Bois-Reymond, whose address, recently 

 republished in the Smithsonian Report for 1891, we have just had the 

 pleasure of re-reading in a copy of that Report sent to us. But it is 

 only at the close of this interesting disquisition that the eminent 

 physiologist asks the question, " What have sculpture and painting 

 been able to do for science in return for its various services ? " And 

 then he will hardly stay for an answer. In fact, the difference between 

 the artistic and scientific modes of approaching nature is so great, that 

 we fear no very satisfactory answer can be given. Even in so obvious 

 a sphere as the representation of natural objects, artists, working to 

 the end of art, have, as a rule, not produced results sufficiently reliable 

 to serve the turn of Science ; while to refer under this head to the 

 more or less accurate drawings intended to elucidate scientific writings 

 would be a gratuitous insult to Art. Such notable exceptions as have 

 existed only make more manifest the general prevalence of inaccuracy 

 on the one hand and absence of artistic feeling on the other. If some 

 return to nature has been shown by our English artists of this century, 

 oddly enough largely in consequence of the teaching of that very 

 Ruskin who deplores the pernicious influence of science, and calls 

 forth the scorn of Professor Du Bois-Reymond, yet the present 



