308 Auxins in Agriculture 



large percentage is in experiment station and industrial positions 

 where some practical research is undoubtedly demanded of them. 

 With the current trend toward increased amounts of financial support 

 for practical research in plant physiology, technological studies are 

 spreading from the agricultural schools into the fundamental science 

 departments, and one cannot help but notice that a considerable 

 number of technological studies reported in the plant physiological 

 literature are coming now from botany departments and biological 

 science departments. 



The diversion of biological researchers away from fundamental 

 science will inevitably lead to reduced productivity in terms of tech- 

 nological progress. It may deserve repeating here that essentially every 

 major advance in science and technology has arisen from the funda- 

 mental sciences. The entire field of auxin physiology itself arose from 

 studies by fundamental research men on such non-technological prob- 

 lems as the reasons why plants turn toward light. It may be pertinent 

 to note that the most rapidly developing sciences today are those most 

 careful to maintain sufficient funds for the fundamental studies which 

 underlie them. 



It seems certain that for continued progress in the technological 

 science of auxin physiology, an adequate research program of funda- 

 mental auxin problems must be maintained. If every auxin physiologist 

 and technologist carried on at least one research problem of a funda- 

 mental nature this would have the doubly beneficial effect of keeping 

 him aware of fundamental problems and permitting a more rapid 

 evolution of the fundamental science itself. 



The trend away from fundamental research and the potentially 

 adverse effect that this trend may bring about has been eloquently 

 pointed out by van Overbeek (1951): 



"The outlook for the remote future seems less bright. Here no specific reference 

 is made to plant hormones but to new applications of plant physiological re- 

 search in general. These applications, so new that one cannot imagine them at 

 present, depend invariably upon results obtained in fundamental research, that 

 type of research which is undertaken with the sole aim of extending the horizons 

 of our intellect. One could liken the relation between applied and fundamental 

 research to the relation between logging operations and reforestation. The forests 

 planted today will yield forest products tomorrow." 



