CHAPTER II 

 SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND INVESTIGATION 



IN the very commencement of our task we wish to make it perfectly 

 clear that we are not in a position to dogmatize. The day for that 

 has entirely passed away, never to return until the years go back 

 upon themselves, for Science, with all that wondrous word implies, 

 is in full cry, hot-foot upon all that pertains to the growing of 

 fruit. 



So full of results is Scientific Research that the last word of 

 to-day becomes the first word of the morrow, a jumping-off ground 

 for further discoveries, which, in its turn, is left behind, as a 

 stepping-stone is left in the bed of the stream. This, though 

 pregnant with great promise for the future, is not without certain 

 inconveniences to us, for it makes it impossible, in a work like the 

 present, to take up problems and handle them with certitude, or 

 with any pretence to finality. Strange to say, we cannot write with 

 the same conviction we could have written with twenty years ago, 

 for this great new force has finally upset all our old theories and 

 practices, turning its searchlights into dark places, revealing hidden 

 mysteries, destroying completely our old complacencies what time 

 it evolves and establishes its own sure and reliable system based on 

 the impregnable rock of Truth and Knowledge. Data is being 

 collected and examined, details scrutinized, facts proved, and all we 

 can do is to keep an open mind, follow closely on the heels of 

 Science, noting and rejoicing in its progress and availing ourselves 

 of its wonderful discoveries. 



In this connection we would most earnestly urge upon all whom 

 it may concern to follow closely the columns of such a journal as 

 The Fruitgrower, which with a praiseworthy and intelligent enter- 

 prise records week by week for our benefit all that is latest and best 

 in scientific research so far as it is of practical use in our industry. 



Along certain main avenues the progress is remarkably rapid. 

 The investigations of diseases, their causes, prevention and cure, 

 are being pressed forward in accordance with the best traditions of 

 never-satisfied science. The erstwhile mysterious and destructive 



