8 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



conditions and forces in the farmer's environment which in- 

 fluence his activities as a farm operator constitute the subject 

 matter of agricultural investigation and education. In the early 

 history of agricultural education, the economic aspects of the 

 problem of the farmer received a large proportion of the space in 

 the books on agriculture. This is true of the Roman books on Agri- 

 culture and it is true of the English works published prior to 1840. 

 With the development of Agricultural Chemistry, Agricul- 

 tural Physics, Agricultural Bacteriology, Plant Pathology, etc., 

 these aspects of the farm problem were brought to the fore- 

 ground, and the physical and biological aspects became dominant 

 in the publications on agriculture. The chemist, for example, 

 has used the most approved scientific methods in his investiga- 

 tions. Naturally he has discredited much that was counted 

 good doctrine on the subject of agriculture. But while they 

 have discredited much that was once held as true, the scientists 

 trained in the physical and biological sciences have not been 

 able to replace the old with a complete system of knowledge for 

 the farmer. Many of the bulletins published by experiment 

 stations have been wrought out with great care by the specialist 

 learned in some one science and then pieced together with the 

 most unlearned notions regarding other aspects of the problem, 

 and especially the economic aspects. For example, not long 

 ago a chemist made a most careful analysis of some sugar 

 beets grown in a given locality. He found the sugar content 

 normal, and proceeded to draw the conclusion that sugar beets 

 could be grown profitably in that part of the state, without 

 giving any consideration to the quantities produced per acre, 

 the cost of producing the beets, the cost of marketing the crop, 

 the difficulty of securing labor, the relative profitableness of 

 beets and other crops which would require labor at the same 

 time of year, to say nothing of the tariff in its relation to the 

 sugar industry. The farmers wanted an answer to the question 

 " Will it pay us to grow sugar beets ? " The chemist's work was 

 a part, but only a part, of the scientific work required to answer 

 the question, but to meet the demand for an answer, the wrong 

 answer was given. 



