PREFATORY NOTE. 



British Agriculture is passing through hard times. No single 

 panacea wilU cure the ills from which it is suffering, but I have 

 the best reason to think that the leaders of the industry would 

 agree with me in looking hopefully to the development of research 

 as a powerful agency of restoration. I need only point to their 

 recent action in asking and obtaining from the Government the 

 grant of one million pounds for Agricultural Education and 

 Research, in consideraton of the repeal of the Corn Guarantees. 



There are at least three parties that are closely concerned 

 to know what agricultural research is doing and proposing^ — the 

 farmer, for whose benefit the work is primarily done ; Parliament, 

 which largely provides the cost ; and the public, which pays the 

 bill and will, I believe, ultimately receive a full return for the 

 expenditure. But it has been urged on me that the efforts and 

 results of agricultural research are largely unknown to these 

 three interested parties. They are often published in scientific 

 journals or proceedings of learned societies to which the ordinary 

 farmer or layman does not readily turn, and they are descrijped 

 in technical language which conveys little or nothing to the 

 reader without a considerable scientific training. There is a 

 fault in the line of communication between the research worker on 

 the one side, and the farmer and the general public on the other. 



The institution of advisory officers in agriculture at the 

 Agricultural Colleges, and other similar measures, have done some- 

 thing and may do more to remedy this failure of communication. 

 But towards the end of last year I determined to try another 

 solution of the problem, namely, the experiment of issuing a 

 general account of agricultural research in Great Britain — not 

 exactly a popular account, but at least one which with a little 

 trouble an educated farmer or even townsman might under- 

 stand. Mr. V. E. Wilkins, B.Sc, of the Intelligence Department 

 of the Ministry, was chosen to collect the materials for this pur- 

 pose, and to reduce them into a compact and intelligible form. 

 I venture to think that he has done his work admirably. I 

 hope that both the farming community and the general public 

 will show by the practical test of buying this volume that the 

 experiment is a success : if so, I should propose to issue a similar, 

 though smaller, volume each year. In that hope, I commend it 

 to the attention of all who have an interest in agriculture or in 

 the sciences on which agriculture rests. 



ARTHUR G. BOSCAWEN, 



Minister of Agriculture & Fisheries. 

 Whitehall Place, S.W.i. 



27th February, 1922. 



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