October 6, 1923] 



NA TURE 



511 



munity is at present in a more receptive mood towards 

 scientific advice than at any time I can recall in some 

 twenty years' "advisory experience, and I believe the 

 moment to be opportune for a forward movement in 

 agricultural education, which, if wisely developed, may 

 remove the last vestiges of opposition and establish 

 [education and research firmly in their rightful places 

 [in our agricultural organisation. 



Our agricultural educational system may be likened 

 {to a pyramid with research at the apex, elementary 

 ^education and general advisory work at the base, with 

 intermediate education, higher education, and higher 

 advisory work occupying the intervening parts. Our 

 pyramid has grown within the last thirty years from 

 a very modest structure of low elevation into an impos- 

 ing edifice, which perhaps appeals to the mind's eye 

 more through its height than its spread, the upward 

 growth having taken place at a proportionately greater 

 rate than the expansion of the base. The essential 

 need of the moment appears to be a broadening of the 

 base with the view of greater stability and a more 

 effective transmission of the results of the activities 

 of the upper portions to the maximum basal area over 

 which they can beneficially react. 



For the purposes of my survey it will be convenient 

 to follow the customary classification of our work into 

 research, advisory work, and teaching. Of these three 

 divisions I propose to deal but very briefly with the 

 first, that of research, since the potentialities of research 

 for the advancement of agriculture are too patent to 

 require exposition, the ultimate object of all agri- 

 cultural research being the acquisition of knowledge 

 which will enable the farmer to comprehend his task 

 more fully and to wield a more intelligent control 

 over the varied factors which govern both crop pro- 

 duction and animal production. 



Agricultural progress must be dependent upon 

 research, and no phase of our agricultural educational 

 system is so full of great promise for the future as the 

 comprehensive research organisation, covering practi- 

 cally every field of agricultural research, which has been 

 brought into existence during the past twelve years, 

 and developed upon lines which ensure an attractive 

 career to a large number of the most capable research 

 workers coming out of our universities. In praising 

 the research institute scheme, I am not unmindful of 

 the needs of the independent research worker and the 

 spare-time research work of teaching staffs — the type 

 of research work to which we owe so much in Great 

 Britain — and it is with some anxiety that I have 

 watched the distribution by the Ministry of Agriculture 

 of the modest resources available for the support of 

 this class of work. I trust that my fears are ground- 

 less, but I am afraid of a tendency to deflect such 

 resources towards the work of the research institutes, 

 a tendency which in common fairness to the independent 

 worker should be most strenuously resisted. With a 

 sufliciently liberal conception of the class of work 

 which can be effectively carried through by the in- 

 dependent worker, there should be no difliculty in 

 allocating these moneys to the purposes for which they 

 are intended. 



In suggesting that, in proportion to the means 

 available, agricultural research is perhaps more 

 adequately provided for at the moment than other 



NO. 2814, VOL. I 12] 



branches of agricultural educational activity, nothing 

 is further from my mind than to imply that greater 

 resources could not be effectively absorbed in this 

 direction. I am guided by the feeling that a due 

 measure of proportion should be maintained between 

 research and the organisation behind it designed to 

 translate the findings of research into economic practice, 

 and to secure that each advance of knowledge shall be 

 made known quickly and effectively throughout the 

 industry. 



It is chiefly in the latter direction that agricultural 

 science can make an immediate and effective contribu- 

 tion to the alleviation of the present crisis, since 

 agricultural research in the main does not lend itself 

 to the " speeding-up " necessary for quick action. 

 The same applies also to formal educational work, 

 which must necessarily exert its influence on the 

 industry but slowly. . 



The one line of approach along which agricultural 

 science can make its influence felt quickly is that of 

 advisory work, which consists in the skilful application 

 of existing knowledge to the solution of practical 

 problems, or at most the carrying out of investigations 

 of a simple type, with the view of securing guidance 

 as to the solution of the problem in time for effective 

 action to be taken. 



The root difficulty of agricultural educational pro- 

 paganda in the past has been to secure a sufficiently 

 intimate and widespread contact with the farmer, and 

 for this purpose no agency at our command is so 

 valuable as advisory work, since it ensures a contact 

 with the individual farmer which is both direct and 

 sympathetic, originating, indeed, in most cases out of 

 a direct request for help. The difficulties in the way 

 of extending advisory work greatly I shall turn to 

 presently, but I wish first of all to outline some of the 

 more immediately helpful forms of advisory work 

 which have fallen within the scope of my own personal 

 experience. 



I will deal first with soil advisory work, being 

 actuated by the conviction that soil investigation is 

 the most fundamental of all forms of agricultural 

 research. Soil factors dom nate the growth of crops 

 from germination to maturity, and must influence the 

 utilisation of the crops by the animal, which is their 

 ultimate destiny. In stressing the importance of soil 

 advisory work I am not unmindful of the fact that, 

 despite the enormous volume of investigation relating 

 to soils which has been carried out, the task of the soil 

 adviser still remains a very difficult one, and except 

 in a few directions, and over a comparatively small 

 area of the country, the interpretation of soil analytical 

 data is rarely clear. It is a sobering thought, indeed, 

 to recall the abounding optimism with which soil 

 analysis was entered upon some eighty years ago, and 

 contrast the hopes then held with the realities of soil 

 advisory work as we find them to-day. 



Tlie initial mistake — so common throughout a large 

 part of our agricultural investigational work of the 

 past — lay in a failure to visualise the complexity of 

 the problem, even with due regard to then existing 

 knowledge. The problem was approached as if the 

 soil were to be regarded solely as a reservoir of plant 

 food, the capabilities of which for crop production 

 should therefore admit of complete diagnosis by 



