Ill, — ^THE RISE OF SCIENCE IN AGRICULTURE 



Moreover, farming is a private business upon which the welfare of 

 families depends — not a few scattered people, but a full third at least of 

 all the population and constituting entire communities. This fraction 

 of the race must not be disregarded or the earth will avenge herself not 

 only upon the unsuccessful farmer, but upon the people as a whole, 

 whose heritage, after all, the land is. 



The agricultural scientist, therefore, must not make mistakes, or he 

 will lead a whole people to disaster. Our philosophies may be wrong; 

 they can be readjusted. Our conceptions of the solar system may be in- 

 complete or wholly erroneous; but everyday life will go on about the 

 same. However, if we entertain wrong conceptions about the serious 

 business of food production, the consequences are swift and merciless. 



If we get too little out of the earth, population is unduly restricted 

 or unutterably miserable; and if we win our sustenance by methods de- 

 structive rather than permanent, then our successors, if not we ourselves, 

 will pay the penalty of our error or of our piracy. Science is our only 

 reliance, but the agricultural engineer must make no mistakes. He must 

 be no blind leader of the blind. Therefore he must know the business of 

 farming. 



Now this is easier said than realized. The college student has lived 

 all his life in school. Learning has been his occupation. Moreover, we 

 shall tell him that if he expects to be really valuable, he must not stop 

 with the bachelor's degree, out he must do so much in addition and do 

 it so well that he will inevitably and in good time achieve the doctorate. 



How then can this young man know by experience the business of 

 farming? He can not know^ it as the farmer knows it after fifty years of 

 earning a living and of clothing and educating the family he has raised. 

 This prospective scientist will work for a salary, which means an as- 

 sured living while he studies and attempts to solve the problems of those 

 who live by production. . . . 



The experiment stations are new, and fortunately whatever else may 

 be said they have now the confidence of the fanners, who have come 

 generally to feel that a new force is in affairs and that a new help to 

 farming has appeared in that indefinite thing we call service. 



Now there is always a temptation to put sacred things to ungodly 

 uses, and the experiment stations have not escaped the operation of the 

 general law. Science has shown that a certain disease or pest can be 

 controlled, and it has pointed out the method of doing it. What more 

 natural than that the public should take the stations at their word, and 

 say "Very well, here is an appropriation; go ahead, make your serums 

 and your rules to put the thing into practise; hale citizens into court; 

 fine or imprison them if necessary, but make it work"? 



Now this is hasty logic and bad practise. The experiment stations 

 are organized for research, not for administration. Again, it is unseemly 

 that a creature of the public like a scientific institution should appear 

 against citizens in the courts and fine or commit them to jail. Besides, 

 the experiment stations have no militia with which to suppress resistance, 

 which in such cases as foot and mouth disease is as ever present as time 

 and as explosive as a volcano. 



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