EDITOEIAL. 603 



unproductive work on the biology of the soil in years past, and to 

 some degree this general lack of information apparently still blocks 

 progress. 



Science rarely progresses by leaps and bounds, but piece by piece. 

 Chance discoveries of great moment are seldom made at random. 

 Knowledge advances by a process of accumulation and through a 

 deeper insight which suggests more effective methods of attack. 



In a certain class of station work there is considerable collection 

 and accumulation of data merely on the chance or in the hope that 

 it may develop something of interest, or shed light on the nature of 

 some class of phenomena. It is rarely a promising method where a 

 definite ultimate object is in view, and unless something definite is 

 being looked for the point of importance may escape notice. Where 

 the first essential step is to get a substantial basis of data or a record 

 of natural phenomena the case is, of course, quite different. 



Some workers are more willing than others to take chances. 

 They unnecessarily admit the element of doubt, partly because they 

 may not be fully conscious of it, and partly because they are im- 

 patient of slow methods. Inexperience and overconfidence in the 

 capabilities of experiment are often responsible for this. Someone 

 has said that a spirit of experiment and a contempt for the past 

 "has made us credulous of quick improvement, hopeful of discov- 

 ering panaceas, confident of success in every new thing." 



There is a kind of experiment which deals with matters super- 

 ficially — which seeks only the answer without regard to how it is 

 derived or how it may be limited — in fact, without determining just 

 what it means. It does not aim at the real underlying question and 

 go to the bottom of it, but it conducts hasty tests and trials which are 

 incapable of giving more than a partial, superficial answer; it mis- 

 takes a comparative result for an absolute answer, and rentures a 

 deduction or generalization which later is found unwarranted. 



Happily this t5^pe of work has quite largely passed. It has been 

 found inadequate and dangerous. It has no place in an enterprise 

 which seeks illuminating and dependable facts. But there is still a 

 considerable body of work which is superficial and incomplete in 

 that it does not go to the kernel of the matter and contents itself 

 with results which are at best temporary and tentative, without 

 planning studies which will make them more logical and stable. 

 Much of this work gives only comparative results, tentative and em- 

 pirical at best, but the chance is taken of generalizing from it 

 broadly. And there is some disposition to perpetuate work of this 

 kind instead of engaging in a type which is more thorough and con- 

 clusive. It is in part a matter of training and of insight, and to 

 some extent it is because such grade of work meets with quick re- 



