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Department of Agriculture. The work of Rothamsted is starved 

 in all directions to a degree that is incredible to its foreign or 

 colonial visitors, it cannot develop to keep pace with the new pos- 

 sibilities and more drastic requirements of science because its in- 

 come is fixed and limited; hitherto it has been refused assistance 

 by the Board of Agriculture on the ground that the Board had no 

 funds for research. However, now that the State has accepted 

 research as part ot its duty to the community there should be no 

 doubt about the Rothamsted station getting that measure of assi- 

 stance which it merits, both by its distinguished history and by 

 the work it has latterly turned out. 



" Of course, Rothamsted is not the only institution in the country 

 now engaged in agricultural research; on the Royal Agricultural 

 Society's farm at Woburn experiments of a similar character have 

 been in progress since 1876 and many of the University Departments 

 and Colleges which came into existence in the early seventies 

 through the Grant of the " Whisky Money" for technical education 

 have developed specialists who are turning out an increasing amount 

 of investigation every year. We have already mentioned Cambridge 

 with its school of plant and animal breeders; the principles have been 

 established, the men have been found (and at bottom it is only men, 

 individuals not institutions, who make discoveries), all that is necessary 

 for the attainment of practical results is more money to conduct 

 the work on a large scale, At present the investigations are paid 

 for out of the savings ot the Teaching Department, the work has 

 largely to be done in the private time of the staff and not infre- 

 quently in their own gardens and at their own expense, it cannot 

 be increased or hastened because of the sheer physical inability 

 of one or two men to count, measure, and record to a sufficient 

 extent at the appropriate season. For practical work of this kind 

 it is the big battalions that tell ; our present neglect is like asking 

 Wren to build St. Paul's with his own hands and such assistance 

 as he can get from the pupils whom he is teaching in order to 

 earn a living. 



" One of the first objects of the Commissioners of the new De- 

 velopment Grant ought to be to build up a great " National 

 Breeding Institute " at Cambridge. 



" There are similarly other institutions doing good work in a 

 quiet way that should be encouraged in their special directions rather 

 than replaced by any new State foundation ; for example, the Agri- 

 cultural College at Wye has already won a name for its investi- 



