466 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1917. 



ample, if Faraday had not worked in pure science, Edison would 

 have had no basis for his wonderful inventions. And so it is 

 throughout the whole range of the practical things we are using to- 

 day. To neglect pure science and support only applied science would 

 be like wanting children and eliminating parents. When I hear 

 those who are regarded as practical men lauding our practical 

 achievements, which certainly deserve praise, but speaking lightly 

 of work in fundamental research, I think of them as those who would 

 praise the practical electric light and forget the impractical, because 

 unseen, power house. Scientific research is the power house that 

 generates all the energy we apply in developing what may be called 

 the machinery of our civilization. 



I wish now to indicate, by a single illustration, how such an insti- 

 tution as this may become a great laboratory for public service. My 

 illustration is intended only to indicate how fundamental research 

 is of the greatest service to public welfare, a source of energy to 

 be called upon and applied as needs arise. It is not intended to 

 indicate the specific kind of work that any given garden should 

 undertake; this may well vary, but it is a good illustration of the 

 value of research work in general. 



I have indicated the problem of food production that our nation 

 is facing to-day. In some way our food production must overtake 

 our population. Over a century ago certain men were speculating 

 about evolution. The subject of evolution was not a science, because 

 men were meditating rather than investigating. Certainty nothing 

 could have seemed further removed from general human interest 

 than this speculation. About a century ago speculation about evolu- 

 tion merged into the science of evolution when men began to observe 

 the facts upon which such a theory could be based. For a century, 

 observation and inference went on until they had reached the limit 

 of usefulness. Near the beginning of this century, men concluded 

 that the only way to secure further progress was to test by experiment 

 whether one kind of plant could actually produce another kind. In 

 observing the behavior of plants in breeding, they began to uncover 

 the laws of heredity; and as knowledge of these laws increased, it 

 became evident that this knowledge could be applied to the practical 

 handling of plants, and what we call our revolution in agriculture 

 followed. It is a far cry from a speculation about evolution to the 

 solution of our food problem, but the continuity is unbroken. It is 

 by such essential and generally unrecognized service that scientific 

 research is contributing to human welfare. I wish to be more specific 

 and to indicate some of the ways in which science has solved this 

 food problem. 



Through scientific work in the study of heredity we have learned 

 to multiply the races of our useful plants so that they may fit in more 



