76 AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENTS AND RESEARCH 



In organizing an Institute for agricultural research 

 work, whether it be part of a Department of Agriculture, 

 an Experiment Station, or any other Institute, the 

 organizer will have to take care that opportunity is 

 afforded for the development of both kinds of work, 

 which we may call, for convenience sake, the laboratory 

 work and the field work. 



Every branch of applied science has thus its two sides. 

 In phytopathology the worker in the laboratory has to 

 find out the cause of the plant diseases; he has to study 

 the life of the fungus and its host-plant, its behaviour 

 outside the host-plant in pure cultures, its resistance 

 against different disinfectants and its other characters; 

 he has to make inoculation experiments in the experi- 

 ment garden on different plants, and to study the influence 

 of different circumstances on the effect of the inoculation. 

 The task of the worker in the field is to study the 

 influence of external conditions, such as planting dis- 

 tance, way of pruning, drainage, soil, etc., and the 

 appearance and spread of the disease; he has to make 

 experiments with different fungicides and to ascertain 

 the best method of fighting the disease; he has to con- 

 sider the cost of the different remedies and the gain 

 obtained by their use; and he has to test in the field 

 different varieties as to their powers of resistance against 

 disease. 



In economic entomology the division of labour is about 

 the same; the laboratory man cultivates the noxious 

 insects and makes a very detailed study of their life in 

 captivity; and he endeavours to import from other 

 countries natural enemies of these insects. The man in 

 the field studies the appearance of the insects in the field, 

 the influence of different methods of cultivation, of crop- 

 rotation, and the value and cost of the application of 

 insecticides and other methods of combating the pest. 



In geology the worker in the field makes a "flying 

 survey " of the soils, and notes the natural vegetation 

 and the growth and yield of different crops; he takes 

 samples of these soils and sends them to the laboratory, 

 where the laboratory man makes a petrographic study of 

 the samples and studies their physical and chemical 

 characters. 



