191 7 J EDITORIAL. 3 



stable conditions for the industry, he maintained that a depressed 

 condition of agriculture is generally unfavorable to the application 

 of science. The encouragement of private ownership of land, adjust- 

 ment of the size of tjie farm to the farmer's capacity, and the estab- 

 lishment of industries like beet sugar and potato drying, which dis- 

 tribute and give employment to the farm laborer, all make for general 

 conditions under which science can be effectively and profitably 

 applied. Education is another great factor in making science ap- 

 plicable. Illustrations were cited from Germany to show how such 

 favorable conditions have been a means for developing agriculture 

 upon a high plane and placing it upon a broad scientific basis. 



On the technical side emphasis was laid on the importance of the 

 true interpretation of science in practice. This has not always fol- 

 lowed from investigation, as was shown by numerous illustrations. 

 It results from a broad generalization from laboratory experiments 

 under artificial conditions to terms of general practice. Attention 

 was called to some of the factors which may upset the laboratory 

 results and conclusions when they come to be applied, such as soil 

 type, climatic conditions, the inducing of disease, etc. The present 

 receptive condition of the farmers and their readiness to adopt sug- 

 gestions make it doubly important that our teaching should be 

 sound. 



Considering the subject of the limitations of science to progress in 

 agriculture, Dr. Lipman, while recognizir.g that in a strict sense there 

 are no limitations in science as long as we keep within natural laws, 

 pointed to certain human limitations in the development of science 

 and in its successful application in practice. He advocated with 

 much force the adequate preparation of men for research in agricul- 

 ture as essential if the present limitation is to be removed. Lack of 

 vision was cited as a most frequent deficiency; the outlook needs to 

 be broader as our problems become more difficult and complex. 



The greatest present limitation of science in agriculture was con- 

 sidered to be its effective application. The man power is the real 

 measure of efficiency in production, rather than the acre yield, and 

 the increase in this efficiency rests upon the spread of education. To 

 raise the scale of production there must be a higher level of educa- 

 tion among the mass of farmers, to bring up those below the average 

 and to raise the average up to the better ones. Economic conditions 

 constitute another type of limitation in determining the extent to 

 which scientific knowledge can be applied in practice, as do also lack 

 of working capital, location remote from market or from transporta- 

 tion facilities, and the lack of cooperation among producers. The 

 latter was regarded as an especially serious limitation, because 

 single-handed the American farmer is frequently not able to fuUy 



