THE AID OF SCIENCE ^ 385 



Both have achieved notable triumphs. It speaks volumes for the 

 energy of agriculturists that, in the face of much discouragement, 

 so much has been accomphshed. It is no shght proof of their 

 practical abihty that enterprise should have been so promptly 

 directed into those branches of the industry which still promised 

 profits. 



In i^hour^ need, agriculture found in science its most useful 

 ^elp. Over a long range of subjects science has estabHshed the 

 relations of cause and effect, reduced practice to principles, sub- 

 stituted certainties for surmises, laws for rules of thumb. Geology 

 and chemistry have given to tillers of the soil their invaluable aid. 

 Geology has taught the reasons which govern the superfluity or 

 absence of bottom water, furnished definite classifications of soils, 

 ascertained the composition of the different strata, explained the 

 principles that control their capabihties and degrees of fertihty. 

 Chemistry by its analyses reveals the elements on which depend the 

 agricultural values of land, studies its mechanical condition and 

 its influence on crops, suggests how to remove differences or supply 

 deficiencies, to equahse varieties in the character of the soil, or to 

 restore its exhausted properties, analyses fertilisers and feeding 

 stuffs, assists husbandry at every stage and in the minutest details. 

 In the Rothamsted experiments are summarised its triumphs. It 

 is a matter of national congratulation that those experiments, each 

 year more valuable from their continuity, have not been interrupted 

 hy the deaths of Sir John Lawes (born 1814) in 1900, and of Sir 

 Henry Gilbert (born 1817) in 1901. The re-discovery of Mendel's 

 theory of heredity, first published in 1865, has opened out new 

 vistas of possibiHty to stock-breeders, helped to correct some of 

 the abuses of continuous in-and-in breeding, promises to fix new 

 variations, to blend useful characteristics in one type, to establish 

 new strains of live-stock. Similar experiments are being conducted 

 in the cross-fertilisation of crop and pasture plants, designed to 

 produce new types of earlier maturity, increased vigour of growth, 

 greater power to resist the attacks of insect pests or fungi, heavier 

 weight, stronger yield, better quality. Through meteorology 

 science is attempting to solve the perplexities of farmers by fore- 

 casts of the weather. It has suggested the potential capacity of 

 electricity to increase the fertihty of the soil. 



In the prevention, if not in the cure, of disease science has made 

 rapid advance. Veterinary skiU every year prevents the loss of 



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