EDITOKIAL. 405 



Now that a separate department has taken over the demonstration 

 features, the stations should give their attention to perfecting their 

 experimental work and putting the questions of agriculture in such 

 form that results of scientific accuracy and value will follow. Unless 

 the methods of research in some phases of agriculture can be mas- 

 tered more effectually, neither the theory nor the practice can be 

 permanently advanced on the basis of scientific understanding. 



As Professor Wood well said, " agricultural science has now 

 reached that stage of development at which the obvious facts which 

 can be demonstrated without considerable effort have been demon- 

 strated, and further knowledge can only be acquired by the expendi- 

 ture of continually increasing effort. In fact, the law of diminishing 

 returns holds here as elsewhere." 



Responsibility to the farmer and tlie need of being sure of conclu- 

 sions is greater than ever, for his confidence has been won and he is 

 in a receptive condition. As Professor Wood put it: "The chief 

 danger seems to be that he tries new things simply because they are 

 new, and he may be disappointed if those who are responsible for the 

 new things in question have not taken pains to ascertain with cer- 

 tainty that they are not only new but good. . . . Let us therefore 

 recognize that the farmers of the country are ready to listen to us and 

 to try our recommendations, and let that very fact bring home to 

 us a sense of our responsibility. All that is new is not therefore 

 necessarily good. Before we recommend a new thing let us take pains 

 to assure ourselves of its goodness. To do so we must find not only 

 that the new thing produces a greater return per acre but that the 

 increased return is worth more than it costs to produce, and we must 

 also define the area or the type of soil to which this result is 

 ..^apjDlicable." 



In summing up what he terms " the moral of the last twenty years 

 of work in agricultural science," Professor Wood says : " The many 

 practical field and feeding tests carried out all over the country have 

 demonstrated several very striking results, but if they are to be con- 

 tinued with profit more trouble must be taken to insure accuracy. 

 Farmers are ready to listen. It behooves us more than ever to found 

 what we tell them on accurate results. Besides such practical trials, 

 however, much has been done in the way of individual scientific 

 work," and he makes an argument for more work of this character, 

 which he declares to be " of practical value to the farmer, as im- 

 mediate as the most practical field trial, and of far wider applica- 

 ■ tion." 



This is the keynote of the whole argument for research in agricul- 

 ture — its practical value and its wide application. Results of the most 

 simple trials which are not accurate or can not be safely extended to 

 similar areas are impractical in the highest sense unless carefully 



