REPORT OF TEE DIRECTOR. 59 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



tion at Kothamsted was entirely due to private initiative. By tliese means a good 

 start was made, and a further impetus was given to the work ten years ago, but the 

 fact that the work was scattered about, was under the control of various authorities, 

 and was partly voluntary, while important vested interests had sprung up in connec- 

 tion with it, had prevented the State from stepping in and elaborating a scheme that 

 would completely cover the whole ground. He could not agree with Professor Somer- 

 ville that there was any great amount of good work being done. They were still 

 experimentalising, but outside Kothamsted there was very little of pure research 

 going on in this country. It was possible only by governmental initiative, with the 

 weight of a great department to carry on the work, to crecte and continue a real 

 research station, which could work, as it were, in the dark for a long period before 

 they could expect to bring about good results. There was another point in which it 

 struck him Canada had secured a great advantage : they had disassociated the teaching 

 side from the experimental side. In this country we were making the mistake of 

 supposing that the two things of teaching and experimenting should be in the same 

 hands. It seemed to him to be impossible to have an educational and a research 

 station together unless there were absolutely separate staffs. The teacher conducted 

 his operations from an educational point of view, and having due regard to the inter- 

 ests of his pupils, but this attention to the needs of the pupils prevented research being 

 properly and thoroughly carried on. If they wanted an experimental station of the 

 best type, they must have a separate staff, giving up the whole of their time to the 

 work. Dr. Saunders's paper would help to clear up their ideas on the subject. Local 

 authorities in this country who largely controlled the work, very much wanted to 

 have clearer ideas as to what was required. At present the work was chiefly educa- 

 tional, and mostly consisted of demonstrations to the farmers of such improved 

 methods as were generally known, and there was little of real experimental work, such 

 as was done at Rothamsted. Until we were able to sei)arate these three departments 

 of the work — the educational, the demonstrative, and the experimental — from each 

 other, they would not make much progress. 



* The President, in closing the discussion, said tliat of course the circumstances 

 of one country differed enormously from those of another country with regard to the 

 methods by which experimental work could be initiated and carried on, and no doubt 

 in a new country where the occupants of tlie land were, scattered far apart, with little 

 individual co-operation, the influence of a central power was essential to the starting 

 of experimental work. As Professor Somerville had explained, it was not the practice 

 in this country to begin work of that kind with State help, but for the State to come 

 in and supplement the work of individuals and voluntary societies. But it should 

 be remembered that the State had lately taken a very long step in the direction of 

 enabling the local authorities to carry on work of this kind— not wholly research 

 work, it was true, but work of a demonstrative character, giving the farmers an object 

 lesson as to what could be done, and what the individual experimenters had worked 

 out in the past. After all, when the State diverted large funds to the assistance of 

 the County Councils to enable them to carry out technical education in all its branches, 

 an important step was talcen to place in th^ hands of the local authorities the power 

 to carry on this experimental agricultural work. There were many points in Dr. 

 Saimders's paper which contained suggestions that were of great value to agricul- 

 turists in this country, and they were certainly greatly indebted to the author of the 

 paper for the great amount of time and labour that he had devoted to its preparation.' 



VISIT TO FRANCE. . 



At the close of the meeting of the British Association I went to Paris. I was very 

 favourably impressed with the Canadian exhibits, and particularly so with the agricul- 

 tural and horticultural collecticns which I had the responsibility of bringing together. 



