TRUE RELATION OF SCIENCE TO INDUSTRIES 275 



ceived, so far, the least assistance. But this is changing. The 

 graduate of the agricultural course is beginning to find him- 

 self. As foreman of the farm or director of the dairy, he is 

 putting into practice the principles of economy and efficiency 

 so greatly needed in the field and orchard. 



In writing of variation and crossing thirty-one years ago I 

 could not have mentioned the name of Luther Burbank. His 

 star, of the first magnitude, had not yet risen. As I look 

 back a third of a century and see myself writing these lines, 

 I cannot repress a feeling of exultation at finding things as 

 good as they are. We have come farther than I imagined 

 possible in January, 1883. 



SCIENCE is the mother of the industries and arts. 

 I propose in this essay to set forth this maternal 

 relation and briefly illustrate its conditions. An in- 

 dustry or an art is applied science. This science is 

 sometimes the result of theory, but more often the off- 

 spring of experience. Science is knowledge of matter 

 and the laws which its action reveals. Every industry 

 and every art is directly dependent for its success on 

 knowledge of the matter worked upon and the laws of 

 its existence. To know something of the nature of 

 ores and of metals is indispensable to even the crudest 

 forms of metallurgy. Tubal Cain had first to devote 

 himself to science before he could become a worker in 

 brass. Blot out of existence what science has revealed 

 of the nature of metals, and the progress of the world 

 would at once be stopped, and all civilized nations re- 

 lapse into barbarism. A beautiful illustration of the 

 relation of science to the arts is found in the manufac- 

 ture of steel. Chemistry revealed the fact that steel 

 differed from wrought iron mainly in its content of 

 carbon. 



The chemist also learned that cast iron is richer in 

 carbon than either steel or wrought iron. In the 



