6 INTRODUCTION 



of farm enterprise must not be neglected in favor of the data of com- 

 mercial and manufacturing activities by those who aspire to enunciate 

 the principles of the science. 



To resort to an analogy, agricultural chemistry is not a science 

 distinct from industrial chemistry and both of these in turn inde- 

 pendent of some unspecialized general chemistry. It is, instead, the 

 application of principles, supposed to be universally valid, to the par- 

 ticular phenomena of agriculture. But the man who goes forth 

 equipped with this general chemistry into the field of agricultural 

 research begins at once to add to his store of knowledge of chemi- 

 cal properties and reactions. He must qualify, correct, and extend 

 those principles with which he first essayed to solve the chemical 

 problems of soil fertility, of plant and animal life. And these labors 

 of his, detecting error and discerning new truth, go in due time 

 to enrich the central science of which his field is but a specialized 

 department. 



Similarly, agricultural economics is not a science distinct from 

 other economic science, nor, on the other hand, is it merely an art 

 devoid of scientific implications and responsibilities. It may happen, 

 indeed, that the very attempt to apply to agriculture, economic 

 theories of supposedly general validity but elaborated from industrial 

 surroundings, shall prove to be the test which reveals the inadequacy 

 of their premises or the incompleteness of their analysis. At all 

 events, the most eireful builder of an economic system cannot felici- 

 tate himself upon having achieved a really valid doctrine until he has 

 ascertained the adequacy of his principles to explain the facts of rural 

 as well as urban enterprise. 



Nor does it behoove us to be narrowly insistent that what appears 

 to be the truth in our particular sphere is the truth about the whole. 

 We should get a larger sense of relationships than did the blind men 

 of the fable. The elephant is not a great serpent, even though a close 

 inspection of his trunk might suggest such a thought; nor is he like 

 a tree, though feeling of his legs shows them to be treelike; nor yet 

 is he fashioned like a wall, though passing a hand over his broad, flat 

 sides may lead one to suppose so. In fact, the whole truth even about 

 trunk or leg or side can be perceived only when it is considered as part 

 of a larger whole. The best hope we can venture for agricultural 

 economics is that it shall take and maintain its proper place of depend- 

 ence and assistance, and that general economics may be both its point 

 of departure and the goal of its return. 



