EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. VIII. ■ No. 6. 



Much serious thought and efibrt are at i)resent beiug devoted to the 

 construction of a true science of agriculture. The application of 

 scientitic methods and principles to the promotion of tlie art of agricul- 

 ture is more and more sought after. Teachers of agriculture are becom- 

 ing thoroughly alive to the importance, if not the necessitj^ of reducing 

 their instruction to systematic form if agricultural courses are to main- 

 tain their proper standing. At this juncture both investigators and 

 teachers in agricultural lines can without doubt learn much from what 

 is taking place in the evolution of other sciences, and especially of the 

 sciences which, like agriculture, deal with complex materials and whose 

 ultimate aims are practical. Such a science is economics, and the recent 

 perusal of a treatise on that subject has brought to our attention a pas- 

 sage Avhich we deem well worthy of consideration by students of agri- 

 cultural science. We quote the following paragraphs from Principles 

 of Economics, by Prof. Alfred Marshall, of Cambridge University: 

 "Though we are bound, before entering on any study, to consider care- 

 fully what are its uses, Ave should not plan out our work with direct 

 reference to them. For by so doing we are tempted to break off each 

 line of thought as soon as it ceases to have an immediate bearing on 

 that particular aim which we have in view at the time; the direct pur- 

 suit of practical aims leads us to group together bits of all sorts of 

 knowledge, which have no connection with one another except for the 

 immediate purposes of the moment, and which throw but little light on 

 one another. Our mental energy is spent in going from one to another; 

 nothing is thoroughly thought out; no real progress is made. The best 

 grouping, therefore, for the purposes of science is that which collects 

 together all those facts and reasonings which are similar to one another 

 in nature, so that the study of each may throw light on its neighbor. 

 By working thus for a long time at one set of considerations Ave get 

 gradually nearer to those fundamental unities Avhich are called nature's 

 laws. We trace their action first singly and then in combination, and 

 thus make progress slowly but surely. The practical uses of economic 

 [agricultural] studies should never be out of the mind of the econonust 

 [agriculturist], but liis special business is to study and interi)ret facts 

 and to find out what are the effects of different courses acting singly 

 and in combination." 



445 



