682 TRANSACTIONS OF SUB-SECTION K. 
more paramount degree of attention than the utilisation of the land for the 
use of man. 
This is by no means a matter which can be disposed of as an occasional 
side-issue in the deliberations of any single Section. If we agriculturists 
have been tardy in coming to be taught by the scientists, we are in earnest 
now in the application for instruction that we make. Neither is it to any 
one science we appeal. KHven the stern mathematician or physicist of 
Section A can teach us something, arithmetical and meteorological, for the 
right conduct of our business and the wiser forecasting of our plans. The 
chemists of Section B have, in an infinite variety of tasks, to come to the 
aid of the farmer, and they have doubtless much to tell of the magic they 
can promise in the direction of fertilising methods. Section C must be 
raided for the experts who know the contents of the soil itself and its 
capacities. Section D may have much to pass on to us concerning 
the live stock and the insect enemies of our farms. Section E may 
enlighten us on the world-wide distribution of crops and the new regions 
awaiting the skill of the husbandman. To Section F we look for warnings 
as to the economic conditions and barriers which—as we are apt to forget— 
hedge round our industry, and for the statistics which must govern the 
varying direction which we give to our enterprise from time to time. The 
mechanical operations of our calling suggest to us the practical assistance 
which Section G can surely offer. Nor-dees even Section H lie wholly 
remote from the inquiries we may need to make as to the resources of the 
globe and the wants of diverse communities. The physiology of Section I 
opens regions of research quite germane to many of our daily studies. Under 
Section K, as an overlord, we rest to-day assured that if every botanist is 
not a farmer, every farmer must in a sense be a practical botanist, for ever 
face to face with the plant and its environment. Perhaps also, in common 
with all the rest of the world, we may have something to our advantage 
to hear from the pedagogues of Section L, who may advise our scientific 
counsellors as to the best form in which even the practical farmer may be 
taught. 
Addressing ourselves, however, to the immediate task in the sub-section 
allotted to us, I suggest to you to-day that, having regard to the place where 
we meet, I may, as a proper prelude to your debates, invite you to consider, 
even if only in the broadest way, what are the leading factors that govern 
the fluctuations of this our industry of agriculture all the world over, and. 
in new countries in particular. The first factor of all is undoubtedly 
population—its growth, its rapidly varying local distribution, and its 
changing and diversified needs. It is for man that crops are raised, 
whether these crops are to furnish food for direct consumption or for the 
sustenance of live stock, or whether they furnish us with our clothing, like 
the wool and the cotton of other lands, or with the materials for shelter, as 
the great timber crops which your vast forests here may bear. When we know 
what is the demand at any given place and time, we shall be prepared to 
give a more exact examination to the means of turning out the effective 
supply at the right moment and in the right place, be it of wheat, of meat, 
of fruit, of wool, of flax, of cotton, or of timber. 
Sir Horace Plunkett told us last summer that he hoped to find in an 
Agricultural Section ‘some humanised supplement to the separated milk of 
statistics.’ Perhaps he unconsciously reflected in that remark the suspicion 
that in earlier days the agricultural debates, which, for want of a better 
place, took place in the Economic and Statistics Section, unduly paraded 
the bare figures of the position. But I myself confess that, however mortals 
may shrink from the rigid arbitrament of arithmetic, neither the teaching 
of the scientist nor the rhetorical advice of the philosopher will lead the 
agricultural student of the future, even if he have the luxury of a complete 
Section of his own, to any fertile result, unless he begins by a clear diagnosis 
a 
