Dec. lo, 1 8 74 J 



NATURE 



109 



order of the letters, and confusion is the result. Then, 

 again, we venture to think that a little more of what we 

 may call manufacturing chemistry might be with advan- 

 tage introduced into our laboratories. After preparing 

 the gases, the student goes on to study the analytical 

 reactions of the metals, where there is very little scope for 

 manipulation. Between these stages, or simultaneously 

 with the latter, the preparation on a large scale of some 

 of the reagents used in analysis, or of some compounds 

 demanding skill and caution, such, for example, as the 

 chlorides of phosphorus, would give a more extended 

 knowledge of practical details, and at the same time 

 furnish the student with a certain amount of technical 

 instruction equally valuable to him as a scientific man or 

 as a manufacturer. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[The Editor docs not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 

 or to correspond with the 7oriters of rejected manuscripts. 

 No notice is taken of anonymoits comfnunications.'\ 



The Royal Agricultural Society and the Potato Disease 



My attention lias been drawn to a letter in Natitre, vol. xi. 

 p. 67, signed " W. T. Thiselton Dyer," and headed "Royal 

 Agricultural Society and the Potato Disease." It appears that 

 Prof. Dyer has founded the statements and criticisms in that 

 letter upon a paragraph which appeared in the preceding number 

 of Nature. Had he taken the trouble to read the offici.al 

 reports that have been published by the Society in the agricul- 

 tural newspapers, the criticisms he miglit then liave made would 

 probably have had some value ; and I must express my surprise 

 that am.m of scientific pursuits should have omitted to take that 

 most necessary and most elementary course which I may term the 

 verification of fundamental facts. This is the more remarkable 

 as he criticises the Society's want of " methodical scientific method 

 of investigation." 



Prof. Dyer asks, " Is it not surprising that the Royal Agricul- 

 tural .Society should think the offer of a 100/. prize for an essay 

 in any way an adequate method of dealing with the subject ? " 

 Now, what docs Prof. Dyer mean by this question ? He seems 

 to imply that the Royal Agricultural Society oflered such a 

 prize, and tint therefore they thought it an adequate method of 

 dealing with the subject. Hut the Society did not offer such a 

 prize, and have not considered whether such a method would 

 or would not be adequate to deal with the subject. 



The truth is, that Lord Cathcart offered such a prize two years 

 ago, and asked the Council of the Society to nominate the judges 

 and otherwise to take charge of the competition. This they did, 

 ani for this alone are they responsible. 



Prof. Dyer proceeds : "The Society then determined to offer 

 prizes for disease-proof potatoes." To this I must beg leave to 

 reply that the Society did not offer prizes for " disease-proof 

 potatoes," but for potatoes which should resist disease for three 

 years in succession in twenty different districts of the United 

 Kingdom. If the somewhat lengthy statement of the terms on 

 which the prize was offered has been colloquially abbreviated 

 into "disease-proof potatoes," that does not justify a scientific 

 man in basing an argument upon it, especially in the columns of 

 a scientific journal. 



Pruf. Dyer continues : "The utter futility of th's proceeding 

 was clearly obvious to anyone in the least acquainted wiih the 

 subject." Here again I must join issue with the Professor. This 

 prize was offered l)ecause certain essayists asserted, and seeds- 

 men advertised, that they possessed varieties of jiotatoes which 

 would resist disease. To put these statements to the test was in 

 conformity with the Society's ordinary practice, whicli is to endea- 

 vour to make its members acquainted with the actual agricultural 

 value of various articles, whether they be seed-jiotatoes, manures, 

 implements, or other commodities. As the result has been to 

 show that none of the potatoes experimented upon can resist 

 disease for even one year in our twenty stations, the members of 

 the Society now know what value to attach to the assertions of 

 their proprietors, and the result is therefore not utterly futile. 



These experiments have also been utilised to ascertain the 

 influence of soil, climate, and modes of management on the crop 



itself, and on the potato disease ; and the results of this inquiry 

 are now being worked out. 



Prof. Dyer goes on to say : " Now, it seems to me that this 

 spasmodic and ill-considered way of dealing with a serious subject 

 contrasts, to an extent that it is impossible quite to regard with 

 satisfaction, with the course that would be adopted in such a 

 matter in other countries. It shows, at any rate, how little the 

 methodical scientific method of investigation is understood by the 

 majority of well-informed English people." I am content to ask 

 Prof. Dyer to point out what is " spasmodic " and what is " ill- 

 considered " in the action of the Society, and how does he 

 justify his assertion about "the methodical scientific method of 

 investigation ?" 



It must be remembered that the Royal Agricultural Society 

 was not established for the advancement of science, and certainly 

 not for the advancement of botany ; liut it was established for 

 the promotion of agriculture, especially by the encouragement of 

 the application of the discovered truths of science to the practice 

 of agriculture, as is shown by its motto, "Practice with 

 Science." 



The Royal Agricultural Society does, however, enlist the 

 services of scientific men upon its regular staff, and in this and 

 other ways seeks to direct their attention to agricultural problems 

 upon which the light of science is still wanting. As Prof. Dyer 

 has contrasted the Society's " spasmodic and ill-considered way "' 

 with "the course that would be adopted in such a matter in 

 other countries," I hope that he will inform me of the course 

 that Agricultural Societies in other countries have adopted in 

 reference to the potato disease and other sucli matters, without 

 receiving assistance from the Government of the country. 



I now come to what Prof. Dyer calls his " second point." He 

 states that the Society, " anxious not to be entirely foiled, offered 

 a sum of money to a well-known investigator of the life-history 

 of fungi, Prof, de Bary, of Strasburg, to induce him to study the 

 potato disease. Considering that De Bary had already written 

 an admirable memoir on the Peronosporciv, there was a certain 

 simpUclty in supposing that the gift of a sum of money would 

 elicit some additional information which his zeal as a scientific 

 investigator had failed to do.'' 



So far as I understand the meaning of the phrase "anxious 

 not to be entirely foiled," it implies some previous disappoint- 

 ment. Now, so far is this from having been the fact, that the first 

 step taken by the Council of the Society was to direct me to 

 write to Prof, de Bary and urge him to continue his researches 

 into the life-history of Peronospora infestam, in view of the vast 

 importance of the subject in its agricultural bearings. Therefore 

 I cannot see how the term " anxious not to be entirely foiled " 

 ciii be made applicable to it. 



The Society at the same time volunteered to place a sum of 

 money at his disposal towards defraying the fxpenses which 

 he might find it necessary to incur, but I hope that my com- 

 munication to Prof, de Bary was not conceived in the offensive 

 spirit which Prof. Dyer seems to suggest. The principle involved 

 has been adopted by the British Association as one of the best 

 means of advancing science, and I consider it a very different 

 matter from that " certain simplicity" which Prof. Dyer derides. 



This was not only the first, but it was the only step then taken 

 by the Society in reference to the scientific questions bearing 

 upon the potato disease ; and its results up to this time are in 

 no respect indicated by the grotesque statements which Prof. 

 Dyer quotes. H. M. Jenkins, 



Secretary of the Royal Agricultural 



Nov. 29 Society of England 



Anabas Scandens 



In a short notice of the contents of the August number of the 

 Bulletin dela Societe d^ Acclimalatiou de Paris, in Nature, vol. xi. 

 p. 98, reference is made to M. Cabonniet's announcement of 

 "the arrival from India ol several specimens of three varieties 

 of tish Jicver hitherto brought to Europe— x\\^ Anabas scandens or 

 Climbing Perch," &c. With respect to tlie Anabas scandens, I 

 wish to remark that in April 1S72 I sent from Calcutta to the 

 Gardens of the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland two speci- 

 mens of this fish. Both specimens arrived safely and were exhi- 

 bited in a tank in the Gardens ; one died soon after arrival, the 

 other lived f.)r several months, succumbing at length to the cold 

 of the following winter. * 



Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley, Dec. 5 G. E. Dobson 



* See Forty-first Annual Report of tlie Royal Zool. Soc. of Ireland : also 

 P. Z. S. Lond. 1874, p. 319. 



