404 EXPERIMENT STATION RECOED. 



In a general way there has been agreement among horticulturists 

 that there ought to be more investigation in their subject, and a 

 recognition that it is based on the application of principles in science 

 which ought to be worked out. The demands upon them prevented 

 such work in the earlier stages, and this has gradually shaped their 

 attitude toward experimentation in horticulture until, in a way, it 

 has become fixed, so that although the way now opens for research 

 they are not drawn to it. They have not had the inspiration of in- 

 vestigation by foreign horticulturists, or an organization of the field, 

 or a summing up of the status of knowledge from a scientific stand- 

 point. 



Twenty years of experiment station work has changed the view 

 but little. The work has been mostly in circles and has continued 

 largely along beaten paths. Investigation is largely a matter of 

 sympathies and temperament, and these have not been developed. 

 The call is loud and insistent for men of that training, but the de- 

 mand can not be met. The difficulty gets back to the colleges. They 

 are not holding up the ideals to the occasional student suited to that 

 sort of a career, and developing in him the standards for real pro- 

 gressive work in horticulture, the spirit of research, and the point 

 of view of science as well as of commercialism. Until this is done, 

 until horticultural instruction is put upon a higher plane, and the 

 possibilities for advanced work in science with a horticultural out- 

 look are developed, we shall have to draw largely on the basic sciences 

 for the principles of horticulture. 



More attention needs to be paid to what the basic sciences are con- 

 tributing which has a bearing on horticulture, and it would be a 

 great help to have the scientific basis of horticulture gathered from 

 all sources and arranged in a systematic way. The knowledge of 

 what has been done is a prerequisite to original investigation in any 

 line. 



It is a singular fact that we have no text-book or treatise on horti- 

 culture in its scientific aspects, no book which brings together for the 

 teacher or the student what is really known of the principles which 

 underlie operations in horticulture. We have such books for animal 

 nutrition, for breeding, for agricultural chemistry, for soils, and 

 other branches of agriculture, but not for horticulture. We have, it 

 IS true, books on the principles of fruit culture and of vegetable grow- 

 ing and the like, but they are the principles or elements of practice, 

 not of science. 



What a help such a book would be to both the teacher and the in- 

 vestigator! It would give the status of science in horticulture in 

 such a way as to furnish a starting point for original and productive 



