512 president's address — section G2. 



greater work, and to take an even more active part in bringing 

 about a great development in the primary production of this fine 

 country of ours. This is a grave responsibility. It is also a great 

 opportunity to justify our right to take our stand alongside the other 

 full-fledged sections of the Association. Moreover, the opportunity 

 is a favourable one, in that we have been passing through a period 

 of very great prosperity in Australia. The finances of the Common- 

 wealth and States are buoyant ; public opinion is sympathetic 

 towards the teaching of science, and the producer is looking towards 

 this Association and other agencies of a similar kind for help and 

 guidance. Political opinion, too, is also prepared to recognise the 

 advantage to be derived from the application of science to production, 

 and better provision is now being made in Government Departments 

 for work bearing on the agricultural industry than has been done 

 in the past. That being so, we must recognise our responsibilities. 

 As expressed in the records of the Association, we are called upon — 

 " to give a stronger impulse, a more sympathetic direction to 

 scientific enquiry " in relation to the primary producer, and, 

 secondly, " to obtain more general attention to the objects of science 

 and the removal of any disadvantages of a public kind which may 

 impede its progress." We are called upon not only to carry out our 

 special duties as scientists, but we have to take the further 

 duty upon us of guiding and directing public opinion just into those 

 channels from which will come the greatest benefit to the industry. 

 It therefore behoves us to see that everything is being done in order 

 to worthily fulfil that position of trust to which we have been called. 



To me has fallen the honour, which I most keenly appreciate, of 

 presiding just at this important juncture in the history of our 

 section, and I thought it might not be out of place in my address 

 to you to refer briefly to the following : 



1 . The position of our agriculture during the last half century, 



with special reference to the part science has taken in 

 its development. 



2. Work urgently requiring to be done, and our relation 



to such. 



3. The necessity for improved means being provided in the 



future for scientific work in relation to agriculture. 



1. The Growth of our Agriculture.— The growth and extension 

 of Australian production has been most rapid, and often under 

 conditions anything but favourable. It is only, even in the oldest 

 State, a little over a century since the very beginnings of the 

 industry took place, and no real attempt was made to seriously 

 tackle sympathetic production on a large scale until within the last 

 sixty years. During that period, however, there has been an extra- 

 ordinary increase in the areas under cereals and in the yields, and 



