February, 1922. 



SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE. 



181 



The Method of Science in Agriculture* 



By Dr. E. W. Allen, 



Chief, Office of Experiment Stations, U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



To be practical has been the great goal 

 of agricultural investigation from the be- 

 ginning. It was enten^d upon with a 

 practical purpose, and in a large degree 

 practical results early came to be the ex- 

 pectation of the farming people. Here 

 was a type of science which Avas not work- 

 ing in the clouds for its own sake, but 

 down in the dirt where the problems of 

 farming lay. 



It is fortunate that this has been so — 

 that this closi? sympathy and this urge 

 to meet tihe needs of the art have been felt 

 so keenly. It has given life as well as pur- 

 pose to our branch of science, and the 

 wide -extent to which its findings have 

 been embraced and woven into the warp 

 and woof of intelligent practice has been 

 a constant source of stimulation. It 

 makes even more imperative the call for 

 steady progress, not only in getting prac- 

 tical results for immediate use but in se- 

 curing deeper insight and larger intelli- 

 gence about the common things of agri- 

 culture. 



The problems of agricultural science 

 have become increasingly difficult. As the 

 simpler things lying near the surface are 

 graduall}^ solved the underlying prob- 

 lems are seen to be more complex and dif- 

 ficult, taxing knowledge, skill, and im- 

 agination to increasing extent. Almost 

 have they come to call for that rare pers- 

 picacity of the colored preacher who 

 claimed to be able "to explain the unex- 

 plainable. to make known the unknow- 

 able, and to unscrew tbe inscrutable." 



At all events, there is no more exacting 

 field of experimental inquiiy at the pres- 

 ent time, and success in it is largely a 

 matter of methods. It calls for a clear 

 conception of the nature of problems and 

 means for deriving the needed data for 

 their solution. Steady advancement in 

 some of the oldest and most common lines 



* Paper read before Section (Agri- 

 culture) of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, Toronto, 

 December 28, 1921. 



of agricultural inquiry rests more large- 

 ly on the development of methods than 

 on additional experiments or the accum- 

 ulation of data on the conventional basis. 

 It is the largest problem in agricultural 

 investigation at the present time, and it 

 is so important that to a large degree it 

 determines the progress of science. 



Fundamentally tine method of science 

 is the same, of course, in agriculture as 

 in the simple sciences. It makes no differ- 

 ence whether the subject is cornmeal or 

 a cbemical compound, the response of the 

 growing plant or the law of falling bodies, 

 the experimental method and require- 

 ments for tine same grade of inquiry are 

 the same. But in practice different types 

 of effort are represented which vary with 

 respect to their aim and the extent to 

 which they require application of the 

 scientific method. The difference is per- 

 haps chiefly a quantitative ome, of degree 

 rather than kind, in conception of the 

 end of inquiry rather than in general es- 

 sentials which must be met. 



In the simpler forms of agricultural 

 work, consisting of observations, tests 

 and trials, the object may be a quite sup- 

 erficial one — the attempt merely to get 

 a bit of information but one step removed 

 from ordinary experience, such as the 

 profit from use of a fertilizer, the larger 

 crop from spraying or the advantage of 

 fall plowing. The information may be quite 

 sufficient for the practical purposes of 

 the time and place but it can not be said 

 to be very scientific even if made with 

 every care, for the work involves no study 

 of exact relationships or tracing of the 

 effect of conditions. In other cases ob- 

 servations, tests and trials may have a 

 deeper purpose and form a step in invest- 

 igation. Similarly, experiments may be 

 purely comparative, as showing the re- 

 lative value of different fertilizers, or 

 feeding stuffs or methods of tillage, 

 without touching any basic fact; or they 

 may be the means of securing scientific 

 facts in a piece of fundamental research. 



