CONSERVATISM IN SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE. 33 



both by elaborate courses of study and by liberally endowed 

 departments of investigation ; a great mass of literature dealing 

 with the scientific and semi-scientific phases of agriculture is 

 being spread broadcast over the land ; a small army of public 

 teachers, both official and self-constituted, are addressing 

 audiences of farmers from the platform, on every subject that 

 has even a remote relation to farming, and the agricultural press, 

 not to be outstripped in this onward march of new theories and 

 modern methods, is active in reviewing Experiment Station litera- 

 ture and in presenting the views of a great variety of writers, 

 including the scientist, the pseudo-scientist, and the so-called 

 practical man. And so from all this probing for nature's secrets, 

 this speaking and writing, this discussion of new theories and 

 methods, some of which live but for a day, some of wliich become 

 the vexed subjects of prolonged, earnest discussion, and some of 

 which crystallize into practice, we have attained to an activity 

 of thought, an elaborateness of treatment, and a complexity of 

 detail concerning things agricultural, which present a marked 

 contrast with the conditions that prevailed even twenty-five 

 years ago. 



There is at least one complaint the farmers of the United 

 States no longer have the right to xitter, which is, that they do 

 not receive full recognition in the exercise of the paternal func- 

 tions of the National and State governments, or in the growth of 

 the means and methods of public education. Whatever may have 

 been their motives, or the arguments which may have been so 

 srrccessfully used in influencing their action, the rej^resentatives 

 of the people have, in their exercise of legislative authority, 

 dealt fairly generously with the industry that feeds us all. Our 

 government may reasonably claim to have done its part up to the 

 present time in the efforts that are being made to impart special 

 education and to discover needed truth. 



The question which must come to the workers in College and 

 Station with great force and meaning is : Are we justifying this 

 great use of time and money by what we are accomplishing? Is 

 this tremendous activity that we are putting forth being 

 directed along tlie right channels ? Are those who are teach- 

 ing and investigating and who are speaking through the press 

 or from the platform, fully recognizing the real needs of agri- 

 culture ? 



