306 EXPEKIMENT STATION RECORD. [Vol. 43 



can be solved there must be a knowledge of their component parts — 

 of what constitutes them; and the analysis or dissection of them is 

 often quite as intimately scientific as the synthetic stages in their 

 solution. There is much need therefore for a careful definition of 

 problems in agriculture as a preliminary to outlining research upon 

 them. 



As a research project is purposeful and is guided by a plan or 

 hypothesis, it is diametrically opposed to the indiscriminate or inde- 

 terminate accumulation of data. This is a distinction that needs espe- 

 cially to be recognized at the present stage. In former years there 

 was such a paucity of information as to what would follow a certain 

 practice or a continued course of action that the rather routine 

 gathering of data might give information which was original for 

 the time and important in supplying a background for more specific 

 plans. Many long continued observations and experiments of that 

 type did not set out to test a theory or hypothesis, but mainly to 

 see what would happen. This was especially true of a certain class 

 of field experiments. The time was not ripe for soil studies as we 

 now understand them, or for intimate inquiry into the relations of 

 plant and environment. These commenced later ; but the immediate 

 purpose of such field work was largely to secure certain empirical 

 facts which would be helpful to practice. 



Following the example of the Rothamsted Experimental Station, 

 whose system of plat experiments had become classic, many colleges 

 and stations in this country early established similar field experi- 

 ments, which were devoted to the accumulation of data according 

 to a fixed plan. Much importance was attached to the continuity 

 of such experiments without change, and as time went on the older 

 series became venerated quite as much for their age, apparently, as 

 for what they had proved or what the kind of effort applied to them 

 was competent to prove. Although defects were in some cases de- 

 tected in them which must be allowed for, and they were not supply- 

 ing additional new facts, there was hesitation in modifying them or 

 doing anything which would interfere with their historic course. 

 Hence it happened that data continued to be accumulated from them 

 long after such data were made the subject of critical study. 



No one would wish to reflect upon the value for the time of these 

 early efforts, but they need to be judged in the light of the period and 

 the status of knowledge they represented. Criticism is more proper- 

 ly directed at their frequent neglect as a source of suggestion for 

 more specific inquiry, and at the continuance of undue emphasis on 

 the accumulation of data according to a conventional plan — of the 

 periodical summary of comparative results rather than of the pro- 

 gressive study of them in the attempt to learn what they mean. 



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