EDITORIAL. 703 



is a notable triiimpli of agricultural science. Nothing else could have 

 given it the dignified standing and the confidence which it now 

 enjoys. The demonstration of science as the fundamental basis of 

 agriculture, of its ability to cast aside the cloak of tradition and 

 superstition and mystery^ which enveloped it, and to provide an in- 

 telligent and reasoning basis for practice, has placed agriculture as 

 an industry on a very different footing in the eyes of the people, as 

 it has also the institutions representing it. Nothing has done so 

 much to impress upon the public the intimate and helpful relation 

 of science to daily life, to educate it to the belief in science as some- 

 thing very real and essential and for universal use, rather than some- 

 thing abstract and incomprehensible and for the pursuit of the few. 



In a recent address Dr. David Starr Jordan expressed some 

 thoughts which are well worth considering in this connection, for, 

 although he was speaking primarily of medicine, his deductions are 

 especially applicable to the subject under discussion. After laying 

 down the principle that all art is based on science, and defining 

 science as " human experience tested and set in order," he said : 



"Art is knowledge in action, and art which is not based on knowl- 

 edge becomes a mystery or a trade. The practice of medicine [or 

 agriculture] through the ages has been one or the other or both. It 

 is a trade when the physician's [farmer's] apprentice follows his 

 master about, learns his ways, his prescriptions, and his professional 

 dignity. It is a mystery when practice is based on some theory . . . 

 which goes outside of human experience for its justification. Science 

 is alike to all men who have gTasped its data and its conclusions. 

 Art will vary with the personality of the individual who practices it." 



Agriculture and the practice of farming have passed through the 

 stage of myster}^ to that of a trade with professional aspects. Mod- 

 ern scientific agriculture aims to replace tradition with well-estab- 

 lished facts. While the art varies with the individual who practices, 

 it is now based on knowledge, i. e., on experience viewed in the light 

 of science. Tliis is its essential characteristic, and the ability to call 

 science into the service of agriculture is a modern a^.complishment. 



The limitations of experience unaided, and its inadequacy to prog- 

 ress, were well set forth by Dr. H. C. White in his Atlanta address 

 on the American Experiment Stations. The application of original 

 investigation to supplement and extend the experience and observa- 

 tions of daily life marked a new era in the acquisition of knowledge. 



Dr. White said : " When Patrick Henry declared that he knew of 

 no lamp by which to guide his feet but that of experience, he spake as 

 a man of the eighteenth century and those which had gone before. 

 For untold centuries individual and traditional experience was 

 counted the safest if not the only guide to conduct. In the great 

 industry of agriculture, ijj which men had been engaged since the 



