Position of Chemistry as a Factor in Agricultural Advancement. 959 



lives of your sons who will one day take your places on the farms 

 you have prepared for them. 



The Work of the Future. 



Before concluding, a few remarks on the future wurk of the 

 branch might be desirable. It is in every way advisable that pro- 

 vision should be made for an energetic expansion in the three sets of 

 activities I have defined, as constituting the legitimnte functions of 

 the chemical branch of a State Department of Agricultui-e. The 

 important part, which you must now all admit chemistry ])lays in the 

 whole procedure of agricultural practice, will, I ho])e, secure from you 

 as a body representing the entire farming community, su})port for the 

 demands which I have made, and shall continue to make for the ad- 

 vancement of my branch. There must be a recognition on the part 

 of the country that the highly educated young men, who have been 

 trained as analysts and platform agricultural lecturers, are deserving 

 of salaries above £70 and £80 a year. The man who is at present 

 acting, or will one day act, as your expert adviser, is worthy of some- 

 thing more than a remuneration barely sufficient to support life. 

 There should be some guaranty also, both in the interests of the 

 head of the branch as well as in the interests of the officer himself, 

 that a permanency of service might be relied upon. Only under such 

 conditions of service can the requirements of the future be provided 

 for, and a continuity of work in specific directions assured. Under 

 present conditions, the service of nearly all my officers is dependent 

 upon some special vote, liable at any moment to be swept away by any new 

 Government which may attain to power. Such conditions are apt to pro- 

 duce a state of anxiety and unrest among officers who are devoting their 

 lives to a special training in your interests ; a training which would 

 for the most part possess no value and find no wide demand outside 

 the Department of Agriculture. The organization of the branch 

 seriously suffers from the temporary nature of the employment of its 

 officers. Such a state checks initiative on the part of the head of the 

 branch, and prevents the putting into action schemes for expansion 

 and advancement, requiring for their performance a cei'tainty of the 

 services of men trained specially for the task. With an assurance of a 

 reasonable remuneration for the services of its officers, and the per- 

 manency of their positions, the branch would have no hesitation in 

 undertaking with vigor the full range of its possible activities. 

 It is the laboratory work specially which has suffered from these 

 conditions. The value of the field investigations of the branch has 

 been too prominently brought under the notice of the farmer, to allow 

 this class of work to suffer many setbacks, but the support, which up 

 to this time, has been given by the farmer must in no way slacken. 

 There are numberless problems still demanding scdution ; and with 

 every new discovery, the field for further inquiry broadens its 

 boundaries. A scheme has been recently placed before the farmers 

 of the country by the chemical branch, which will enable a large 

 variety of field experiments to be conducted over a period of at least 



