258 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



August 25, 1917. 



from their closer alliance will be incalculable. Pure 

 science in the past has owed much to observations and 

 suggestions external to the laboratory and study, and 

 it will be for the good of mankind at large if the 

 relationship of scientists be so ordered that they 

 receive a stimulus of a wider and more practical outlook 

 than is attainable under the limitations of an academic 

 system of syllabus and examination. As the future 

 will be an age of specialization and co- ordination, it is 

 an important point that the specialists be men actively 

 engaged in the work which is their specialty. It is the 

 duty of men of science and of leaders of industry to 

 exert themselves to the utmost to secure due recogni- 

 tion and participation of science in the gigantic problems 

 of national and international readjustment with which 

 the world will shortly be confronted. 



The Report for 1915-16 of the Committee of the 

 Privy Council for Scientific and Industrial Research 

 states clearly and definitely that pure science is the 

 necessary precedent of industrial applications, and 

 ■efforts are being made on the part of British indus- 

 trialists to promote original research both by individual 

 and co-operative assistance. In the United States 

 of America there has been an earlier recognition than 

 in England of the large part played by the systematic 

 application of science in the rapid progress of German 

 trade. The Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, 

 the Carnegie Institution, and the Rockefeller Institute, 

 all of which have been founded in the present century, 

 are magnificent instances of the recognition by private 

 men of the supreme necessity in the advance of 

 civilization for encouraging pure science in the 

 troadest and most liberal manner, while the Federal 

 Department of Agriculture is alive to the same need, as 

 is shown by the fact that nearly 2,000 trained specialists 

 are engaged in its laboratories in scientific investigation 

 and research. The scheme of organization of the Rocke- 

 feller Institute is uf special interest, as it is regarded 

 ■by many as ideal for a scientific institution established 

 for a specific field of research. The experience of the 

 institute in regard to scientific investigation is that the 

 best method is to map out a field in which the most 

 pressing problems arise: then to obtain the best man 

 available in each branch, and to allow him to associate 

 With himself collaborators to attack the problems in 

 the most effective manner. Many of the leading 

 industrial firms in the United States have also 

 established research laboratories on an extensive 

 scale; one company, for instance, which specializes in 

 the production of serums and toxins, having a scientific 

 staff of more than sixty graduate chemists and 

 bacteriologists. 



In no sphere of industry, perhaps, is the union of 

 science and practice, of head and hand, of such conse- 

 quence as in agriculture. The publication bj' the 

 English Board of Agriculture of a comparative study 

 of British and German agriculture has served to direct 

 attention to the lower producing power of the former, 

 and the far smaller efforts devoted to promoting agri- 

 cultural research: and it is stated that the great 

 advance achieved in Germany during the last quarter 

 of a century is largely due to the co-operation of 

 science with practical farming. Throughout the present 

 war, the agricultural colleges and experiment stations 

 have rendered useful service, and have demonstrated 

 more convincingly than ever the dependence for devel- 

 opment of agriculture upon research. Unfortunately, 

 research facilities have been disproportionate to the 

 need, owing to science having not been regarded in its 

 true light in the past. It is to be hoped that the new- 

 conditions will do much to strengthen and stimulate, 

 throughout the Empire, development of scientific 

 agriculture, for if the Empire is to meet with success 

 the problem of becoming self-supporting as regards 

 foodstuffs, it IS imperative, so far as science permits, 

 to make our agricultural knowledge e.xact by learning 

 by research the action of the laws which find .applica- 

 tion in agriculture. 



DEPARTMENT NEWS. 



Mr. F. H. Waikins, IS.O., having been requested 

 by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to act as 

 Colonial Secretary of the Leeward Islands, has left for 

 Antigua to take up that office. The Governor of 

 Barbados has consented to allow the Reverend C. H. 

 Branch, B.A., to perform the duties of Scientific 

 Assistant. 



Arrangements are in progress to enable Mr. S. C. 

 Harland, B.Sc, Assistant Agricultural Superintendent, 

 St. Vincent, to carry out investigations with Sea Island 

 cotton, under the direction of the Imperial Department 

 of Agriculture. Provision for this service is beino- 

 made by the Department of Scientific and Industrial 

 Research, lately established by the Imperial Govern- 

 ment. 



In 1911) an Act was passed iu the Imperial IJiet of 

 Japan, to grant subsidies to the amount of 2,000,000 yens 

 (yen = 2*. O^d.) spread over a period of ten years to the 

 establishment of a .scientilic laboratory in Tokio, and the 

 Imperial Household has also decided to donate 1,000,000 

 yens to the uudtrtaking. The laboratory will be completed 

 in ten years time, and it is intended, as is stated in The 

 Board of Trad,- Journal, Vol. XCVII, p. GCS), that researches 

 in connexion with electrical and electro-chemical industries, 

 chemical and other products industries, and processes will be 

 carried on. 



