x PRACTICAL PURPOSE 277 



When the practical man particularly he who is 

 engaged in rural pursuits reaps any profit from science, 

 he does so against his own convictions. The motto of 

 the Royal Agricultural Society of England is " Practice 

 with Science," yet how rarely do farmers show by word 

 or deed that they realise the intimate connection between 

 scientific investigations and agricultural arts. To the 

 husbandman in general, science means theory, and his 

 own experience fact ; and he is as contemptuous of the 

 one as he is confident of the other. He will pay a fancy 

 price for a patent fertiliser, when a little scientific 

 knowledge would show him that the same stimulating 

 constituents could be obtained at one-third the cost, or 

 less. He will lose hundreds of pounds on his crops or 

 stock, by pests and diseases, without knowing anything 

 of the nature of his enemies, against which he has to 

 fight. He prides himself upon being a " practical man," 

 and regards all scientific work as unpractical, though 

 every fly that troubles him, and every fungus that 

 infests his plants, has to be studied laboriously by 

 biologists before any accurate knowledge of its life- 

 history can be obtained. Whatever is known of the 

 exact relation between cause and effect in all branches 

 of agriculture, and whenever fact can be placed against 

 opinion as regards diseases of animals and plants, the 

 credit belongs to the scientific investigator, and not to 

 the actual cultivator of the soil. 



Swift, with severe satire, made the King of Brob- 

 dingnag express to Gulliver the opinion " That whoever 

 could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to 

 grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, 

 would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential 

 service to his country, than the whole race of politicians 

 put together." The increase has been effected, but the 



