180 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



"radiolaria," as interesting but not valuable agricultural information 

 coming out of the biological era given mainly to classification. 



But as botany and zoology emerged from a study of form to a 

 consideration of structure and finally of function, then it was that 

 the biological sciences began to vitalize agriculture almost exactly 

 in proportion as they vitalized themselves. 



And now at last we are at the threshold of a scientific study of 

 that wilderness of function that we call physiology. It is that form 

 of science which studies systematically what living things do as well 

 as how they are constructed. It studies them alive and in action 

 rather than depending, as we have too much depended, upon killing 

 the thing in order to count its bones. 



So is physiology at last coming into its own after a generation or 

 two of practical neglect, while scientists largely have been following 

 the lead of chemistry or have switched off into one of the by-roads 

 known as evolution, plant breeding, genetics, or the study of diseases 

 and their control. These subjects are all exceedingly useful but they 

 are all branches of the main stem, which concerns itself with the way 

 in which living things perform their normal functions day by day and 

 the conditions necessary to successful growth which, after all, is 

 our principal agricultural problem, especially in crop production. 



The successful growth of crops depends much upon new and 

 better varieties, especially those that are resistant to disease; but it 

 depends even more upon a better knowledge of the sensitive periods 

 of each particular species and the attending conditions of soil and 

 climate best suited to its production. Valuable as are the vitamines, 

 important as is the rule of the amino acids, there is yet even greater 

 significance in those vital activities which do not lend themselves to 

 chemical analysis but must be studied by direct methods brought to 

 bear upon the animal or the plant at work and discharging its normal 

 function. 



THE CONTRIBUTION FROM ECONOMICS 



Slowly, haltingly, almost apologetically, has the great science of 

 economics at last been recognized as able to contribute something to 

 agricultural advancement. 



Agriculture as a great productive industry has always figured 

 large in the accounting of the economist. In peace it is one of the 

 basic industries, whether considered as a source of wealth or as a 

 reliable element in commerce and the balance of trade. In war it 

 often turns the tide of battle, and as history abundantly demonstrates, 

 it is the products of the land that decide the final fate of nations. 



