182 TILLEES OF THE GKOUND CHAP. 



the disease. Sympathy and charity are not 

 sufficient ; some members of the community must 

 look beyond the needs of the moment to the future. 

 This is one thing that the struggle with disease 

 has taught. 



One other point is as important. We some- 

 times hear people say that " science " is no use, 

 that the practical farmer or gardener knows far 

 better how plants should be grown than the 

 agricultural chemist or botanist, and that it is only 

 the practical man who has any right to speak on 

 the subject. But when a terrible disease comes the 

 practical man, who depends for his daily bread on 

 his fields, is often almost crushed by the calamity. 

 It is so near to him that he is reduced to despair. 

 " What good will it do," he is inclined to say, " to 

 pull up my blackened potatoes, and see what is really 

 wrong ? They are useless, and I am ruined, and 

 that is the end of it all." 



It is when this happens that the man of 

 science can step in, and say, " Courage ! it is 

 not so bad as you think ; we can help, we can 

 perhaps prevent the same thing happening again ; 

 we can show you how to reduce the loss as much 

 as possible." One of the uses of men of science is 

 to prevent despair at critical moments. Very often 

 they can do it just because, while the farmers have 

 been growing potatoes and wheat and so on, they 



