RELATION OF BIOLOGY TO AGRICULTURE 539 



THE RELATION OF BIOLOGY TO AGRICULTURE 



By Pbofessoe F. R. MARSHALL 



OHIO STATE UNIVBBSITY 



T^yNTIL a few months ago Americans were inclined to express sur- 

 V-/ prise at the paternalistic measures for fostering agriculture as 

 adopted by other countries. Now, the necessiiy of ensuring adequate 

 food supplies has made us willing to assume the same encouraging 

 attitude toward agriculture as we have always held toward our manu- 

 facturing enterprises. 



Last year we seemed broad-minded and liberal in what we were 

 doing for the promotion of agriculture, and our motives were really 

 largely philanthropic. We knew that the bulk of our population fared 

 more sumptuously, if not more wisely, than the inhabitants of other 

 nations, but it was maintained that the American laborer was the 

 superior of the European, and his standard of living was, and must con- 

 tinue to be, a higher one. Now we would foster agriculture because we 

 see our dependence upon that industry. The disposition to foster agri- 

 culture is evidenced by such actions as the legislatures' requesting the 

 agricultural colleges to establish correspondence courses. 



Although the meat boycott was heard of only in its organization, 

 even that move showed plainly that either the standard of living or our 

 agriculture must change. Doubtless both will be greatly modified. 



It is not necessary to argue the urgent and immediate need of a 

 more intelligent and scientific agriculture. Present prices are already 

 inciting greater study, as well as adding to the numbers of farmers. 

 The apparently diseased condition over which we have temporarily dis- 

 turbed ourselves really exhibits nothing that can be readily treated 

 except our tastes, and for those the treatment must be mainly psycho- 

 logical. That remedy is already at work, and the same conditions have 

 also set at work the other remedy, of a more studied production. 



It may be philanthropy, but it is also good economic policy, to do 

 everything possible to distribute and add to our knowledge of scientific 

 agricultural principles. The problem is to secure the intelligent appli- 

 cation of what we have, but no less to increase our knowledge of prin- 

 ciples and of their possible economic value. 



The further we are removed from the unsettled times of 1862, the 

 more clearly can we appreciate the wisdom of Justin Morrill in framing 

 the law that founded our present agricultural teaching. The Hatch 

 Act of 1887, by which our experiment stations were brought into exist- 



