AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENTS AND RESEARCH 75 



the whole there is at the present time hardly a single 

 branch of science which is not essential to the improve- 

 ment of tropical agriculture. On the other hand, every 

 effort to improve agricultural methods must be sustained 

 by scientific research, and at the present time almost every 

 planter is convinced that he cannot improve his methods 

 without scientific help. 



There is, however, less agreement among the scientific 

 men themselves regarding the method of helping the 

 planter and regarding their position towards the man of 

 practice. Speaking generally, we may say that there are 

 two parties. The one consists of men who, above all, 

 are anxious to do real scientific research work; they 

 understand that they must keep in touch with agriculture, 

 because they are working on behalf of it, but their work is 

 more in the laboratory and in the experiment garden than 

 in the field. The other party comprises those who, above 

 all, are anxious to do practical work and to get practical 

 results; they are well convinced that they must follow 

 scientific lines, but they find more to do in the field than 

 in the laboratory or the experiment garden. 



It cannot be said that these two parties have always 

 lived in peace together; often they have been at variance, 

 and there have been more or less vehement discussions 

 as to who was right and who was wrong; the one was 

 sometimes called "very scientific but not practical/' and 

 the other " unscientific and superficial." 



I think we must be convinced that there is no reason 

 for such an antagonism. Just as well people might fight 

 about the question : Who has done the better work, the 

 man who has grown the wheat, or the other who has 

 made food of it ? Indeed, the one cannot do without the 

 other. 



And here we are coming to the point. With all research 

 work done on behalf of agriculture it must be fully 

 realized that we are concerned with applied science, and 

 that there are two sides to this work : the research of 

 the thing itself and the investigation of its application. 

 They are equally important and scientific, and must be 

 done with the same intelligence and the same application 

 if success is to be assured. 



