328 III. The Afiricultural Problem 



constants: they recjuire for their interpretation detailed study by a 

 competent physiologist who will watch the plants growing in the fields. 

 Remarkably little attention has been devoted to the growth of the 

 plant under natural conditions. A very fruitful field of investigation 

 is opened up by the bringing together at Rothamsted of the statistician, 

 the mycologist, and the physiologist whom we hope shortly to bring 

 into our circle. 



A serious difficulty in agricultural investigations is the education of 

 the workers. For convenience of University organisation the realm of 

 Nature is divided up into certain limited areas which we have labelled 

 chemistry, botany, physics, etc., and have come to regard as in some 

 way different things. But the lines are in us and not in Nature. A man 

 dealing with an agricultural problem cannot remain bound by these 

 divisions but must be able to look over the field and see it as a whole. 

 In practice of course this implies a body of men meeting to discuss the 

 problem, and this necessity furnishes the best argument for large central 

 experimental stations which otherwise are open to serious objection. 

 At Rothamsted the staff meetings held every fourteen days to discuss 

 the work prove of great value. 



The practical problem differs in several ways from the scientific 

 problem but especially in the degree of urgency. The investigator is asked 

 what he can do to save a particular crop : he must therefore find a solution 

 quickly if he is to afford any help at all. Further, there is an economic 

 factor from which the operations of the medical investigator are entirely 

 free. A grower fixes tolerably sharp limits beyond which he is not 

 prepared to pay for cures for crop diseases. 



Experience at Rothamsted shows that the investigation of practical 

 problems is best made at smaller sub-stations set up in the midst of a 

 group of growers particularly concerned. In that way workers specially 

 interested in practical applications can obtain abundant scope for their 

 activities both in supply of material and opportunities for experiment. 

 The central research station gains because it is relieved of work for 

 which it lacks special equipment, thus allowing greater concentration 

 on fundamental problems; it further gains enormously because deduc- 

 tions from the results of its investigations can be tested on a larger scale 

 under different conditions by friendly and perhaps rather candid critics. 

 The close association between Rothamsted and its daughter-station in 

 the Lea Valley is of great advantage to the workers on fundamental 

 problems at Rothamsted. This station was set up to study the problems 

 of the intensive grower under glass, largely producing tomatoes and 



