Id president's address. 



this, contemning one another. The result was tliat, from the nation's point of 

 view, the brains of the chemist were wasted, tlie activities of the merchants handi- 

 capped, the wealth of the hanks locked up, and politicians a vain lu.xury. The 

 British brain was working; but was a mileh-cow for other astuter nations." What 

 is here said or implied about the importance of the co-operation of men of science 

 with commercial men and with Governments, and about the national lack of the 

 appreciation and practice of it, before the War, is only too true. But the men 

 of science are not, equally with others, to blame for it. For, from time to time, 

 their representative spokesmen have pointed out what was needed, but their warn- 

 ings and their recommendations have too often failed to arouse attention or elicit 

 any response. Or if noticed, their views have been dubbed "counsels of perfec- 

 tion," or "arm-chaii-" advice, which the "practical" man can well afford to ridicule, 

 or neglect altogether. Now, in the case of Australia, there is great need for a 

 closer and more effective co-operation of Science with the primary producer, the 

 man on the land. With the manufacturer also, but in this case, the need can be 

 easily provided for, since all he has to do is to make the necessary provision for 

 increasing his staff by the addition of such scientific experts, chemists or what- 

 ever they may be, as circumstances require. But the ease of the primary pro- 

 ducer is different, and it requires the most earnest consideration. It is necessary 

 for him to learn and understand, what he is apt to overlook, or fail to realise the 

 importance of — small blame to him, under the circumstances which have encour- 

 aged it — that there is a theoretical side to his practical acti\ities, which needs to 

 be taken into account ; that in his case, as in others, the theoretical side and the 

 practical side are complementary, since true theories are merely the generalisations 

 upon which practice is to proceed. Now a lack of appreciation of this need of 

 the recognition of the complementary relations of science and jiractice in rela- 

 tion to di'ought-problems is jilaiuly in evidence in books and in newspa;ier records ; 

 and I shall refer to some of them presently. One imperative reason for taking 

 account of them henceforth is, what is implied in the statement that "Australia's 

 bid for greatness rests upon her agricultural possibilities'' ;* and that considerable 

 progress has been made in this direction since these words were recorded, with 

 more to follow in the immediate future. The imperativeness of the reason re- 

 ferred to arises in this way. In the earliest days of settlement in the inland 

 districts, the man on the land was a pastoralist solely. But now that he is de- 

 voting more and more attention to agriculture, it is necessary to remember that 

 this means a steadily increasing removal of the natural covering of the soil — in 

 the shape of forest, or scrub, or gTasses, or whatever it may be — and that his 

 operations necessitate, over a steadily increasing area, a profound disturbance of 

 the soil-organisms and of their relations to the indigenous plants, which have come 

 about as the result of Natu7-e's long-standing arrangements. Now these are mat- 

 ters which cannot be treated with absolute indifference; for they mean nmi-h : ;iiid 

 what they may do or mean, it is necessary to leam. 



When Australia was colonised in 1788, the first settlers found everything 

 very diffei-ent from what they had been accustomed to. In due time, a spokes- 

 num took it upon himself to voice the strangeness of the land to which they had 

 migrated. This was ]\rr. Barron Field, a Supreme Court Judge in Sydney from 

 1810-2.3. To him, the colonists were the antipodes of the old folks at home. 

 Consequently Australia not oidy was, but ought to be, the Land of Upside Down . 

 It was the great Freak-Land. The plants were freaks, the animals were freaks, 



•Gullett, H. S., ".\ustralia's Development: the Coming of the Farmer," Chambers' 

 .Tiiurnal, .Tanuarv, 1909. 



