.1 Decennial Record 105 



stations; such are institutions like the United States Bureau of Stand- 

 ards ; and such, also, is this institution in whose honor we meet today — 

 the Forest Products Laboratory. 



It is noteworthy that these institutions have developed to greater 

 size and in greater number in those relations which have to do with 

 the soil and its products. Here we find the largest number of men 

 whose business it is to take the knowledge which has been accumulated 

 by the explorer of nature and to bring it into direct relation with 

 affairs and with human life. 



Let me take an illustration from the activities of the department 

 of agriculture and outside of the forestry service. Consider for a 

 moment the student of soils. His work is dependent upon the knowl- 

 edge which lias been brouglit together in past years in the department 

 of chemistry, both organic and inorganic; it depends also on knowl- 

 edge which is embodied in the sciences of bacteriology, of botany, of 

 zoology; and in addition to these specific sciences he needs the princi- 

 ples wliich have been wrought out in physics and in many other de- 

 jDartments. The definite work of tlie student of soils is the application 

 of knowledge and of principles which have been wrouglit out else- 

 where. These he takes and applies to the conditions found in the soil. 



There are two points to be noted in regard to this work. In the 

 first place scientific knowledge can not apply itself, nor can it be 

 directly carried over from laboratory to field. For the conditions 

 under which this knowledge has been wrought out are widely different 

 from those in which it is applied. The student in the laboratory makes 

 his own conditions of experiment, and it is only as lie is able to define 

 and to limit the conditions of nature that he is able to secure the 

 results for which he is seeking. But the student of soils must carry 

 this knowledge over into the world of affairs, into the complex situa- 

 tion which nature offers to us. Knowledge must be set to work under 

 nature and therefore under conditions totally different from those of 

 the laboratory. The material conditions of the soil must be consid- 

 ered, the intelligence of those who are working it, and especially the 

 relation of cost and of profit to the processes which are set up. All of 

 these innumerable items which the scientific explorer neglects, and 

 ought to neglect, must be carefully considered by those who are apply- 

 ing knowledge, since they furnish the conditions under which knowl- 



