14 



the local dairy farmers with freshly prepared starters with very 

 satisfactory results. In time, no doubt, the Government will be 

 able to manufacture these starters and supply them throughout the 

 Dominion, and thus provide our dairymen with more reliable cultures 

 than those that they make for themselves from the imported powders. 



THE NEED FOR RESEARCH. 



I mention these facts in order to impress upon orchardists that 

 there is no short cut to the making' of important discoveries. The 

 day of empiricism is or ought to be past, and no advance can be 

 made in the diagnosis of disease or the finding of a remedy without 

 more or less prolonged research. 



The work of pure science is intimately related to industries 

 of all kinds, and not least to agriculture. It is true that the man 

 ,^1-ag scientific work in the laboratory may not have sufficient 

 acquaintance with the industry to see exactly the best way in whicn 

 to employ his new-found knowledge, but the industrialist ought to be 

 so educated as to be able to apply it for himself. 



In a recent number of "Nature" I read an article on the "Organi- 

 sation of Research in Agriculture,"^ where a contrast is drawn 

 between the encouragement given by Germany to research and that 

 given by Britain, and I may add, by British colonies in general. It 

 is not that German science is any better than that of British scientific 

 men, or that more important discoveries have originated there, 

 for, as we have seen, many valuable lines of investigation have been 

 initiated in England, but the Germans have appreciated the value of 

 scientific research to industries in a way that British people never 

 have, till the present war has forced the Government to recognise 

 the importance of employing scientific men to solve many of the 

 difficulties met with by industrialists in their present needs. "The 

 German people as a whole believe in the economic value of know- 

 ledge, respect the scientific method, are eager to give practical effect 

 to the results attained by that method, and as a result are ready to 

 submit their industries to scientific direction. It will avail us little 

 to endow scientific research unless scientific knowledge is treated 

 with greater deference than it has been in the past. The fond belief 

 that scientific results can be ordered and paid for Tike goods and 

 that the knowledge which gives these results birth has no continu- 

 ing value must be abandoned if we set out to compete with the 

 German in his own field." 



As evidence of the hold which scientific work has gained on the 

 German agriculturist, we have the 'remarkable fact that some years 

 airo the German farmers and landowners raised a sum of one and 

 a-half million pounds sterling which they presented to the Kaiser 

 for the purpose of founding- industrial and agricultural laboratories. 

 The gross revenue of the agricultural research stations in Germany 

 approaches 400,000 ; in England only 40,000 ; whereas in America 

 it reaches one million pounds. 



*"The Organisation of Research in Agriculture" in "Nature." Fefc 28 

 1918, p. 507, 



