EDITORIAL. 407 



the campus or to count the lady bugs on our planet is not research. 

 These facts — though facts they are — have no permanent character; 

 they do not lead anywhere." And as to the spirit of research he 

 says : " To do effective research is to know the spirit of mastery, 

 the spirit of mastery where no one else suffers the pang of defeat. 

 It is to develop the sense of superiority of mind over that which is 

 not mind. It is consciously to obey the command to subdue the 

 earth. It is to replenish it with a new creation. It is to make the 

 universe a little fuller and richer by understanding it better." 



Years ago the director of one of our oldest stations explained in 

 his first annual report that " to rightfully connect cause and effect 

 requires careful education and training of the faculties, and to 

 interpret fully facts in their proper relations requires most con- 

 siderate study." 



In the past few years a long list of efficient station workers have 

 exemplified the meaning of research and its method, have demon- 

 strated its spirit, and have furnished results which show more con- 

 clusively than words can the practical and the enduring value of that 

 type of activity. The stage has been reached for its broader appli- 

 cation to the live practical problems of agriculture. We have out- 

 grown the more superficial methods and tentative results. It was 

 interesting to hear the statement recently of a station director in 

 the far West, that the most practical and valuable features of his 

 station's acti\aties had been the product of its Adams fund projects; — 

 this in a country where cultivated agriculture is new and where the 

 natural tendency would be for quick results, to answer the questions 

 of the immediate present. 



Until permanent and enduring facts are developed we can have 

 only a shifting and uncertain foundation for a theory of practical 

 agriculture ; and until our understanding is clear and sure it is impos- 

 sible to broaden the understanding and the reasoning basis of the 

 farmer. 



825)7 °— No. 5—13 2 



