chairman's address. 799 



Roosevelt would Lave recognised the existeuce of the probleai, much less have 

 insisted upon its urgency. In my view the wide dissimilaiity in the external 

 conditions here and in the United States should bring into strong relief the human 

 factor of the problem. It is the part of the statesman and the philosopher to see 

 that this factor, neglected by the specialist, is given its proper place. 



The British Association and Riural Life. 



1 pass now from the region of high politics, where national problems must be 

 placed in their true perspective in order that their relative importance may be 

 determined, and turn to the bearing of the sciences, within the scope of the 

 British Association, upon the problems of rural life. And here let me say 

 emphatically that while I speak as a politician, because I am discussing a vitally 

 important national issue which politics will ultimately decide, the cause I have at 

 heart is the enhancement of the influence of science upon the affairs of State. 



Now this influence of the British Association must, it seems to me, depend, 

 not upon its highest achievements in the region of pure science, but upon the 

 degree in which it establishes and maintains a mutually helpful relationship 

 between science and productive eil'ort. To the man in the country lane, even 

 more than to the man in the street, science rmapplied is soul without body — only 

 less negligible than the more common pheiromenou of body without soul. And if 

 there be nothing sordid in the suggestion, may I point out that until the coming 

 of the ideal state those who devote their lives to research must be maintained by 

 those who make use of, and profit by, their discoveries ? It is no longer necessary 

 for the master of great thoughts to iind a patron before he can get a public ; hut 

 it were well to remember that while Demos pays Literature and Art for instruction 

 and amusement, he exacts of Science an increase of wealth and comfort. In the 

 town these conditions are fulfilled; in the country they have yet to be supplied. 



The Three Sides of Rural Life. 



Those of us who are working upon the problem of rural life in Ireland adopt 

 a rough formula to indicate the threefold character of the constructive work 

 which is needed for a complete solution. Better farming, better business, better 

 living, we say, covers the ground. For farming clearly has three sides: the first 

 dealing with the cultivation of the soil, the breeding and feeding of stock; the 

 second, with the principles of farm management, its finance, and the economy of 

 agricult4iral production and distribution; and the third, with the social life of the 

 aoricultural classes. In each of these three divisions we can have most helpful 

 relations with the sciences : in the first, with the natural sciences ; in the second 

 and third, with economic, in which I include social, science; and in all three, 

 with educational science. I now proceed to consider the three departments of 

 rural life and work, and the demands they make on the several sciences and the 

 sections embracing them. 



(1) The Natural Sciences and Agriculture. ' 



In the first of my three divisions— better farming— we have to consider the 

 relations between science and practice in agriculture so far as they are aflfected by 

 the work of the British Association generally and of our Sub-Section in particular. 

 Let me call you back seventy years to the meeting of 1838, when the British 

 Association obtained from Liebig hia epoch-making report upon the application 

 of chemistry to agriculture. At approximately the same time the Rothamsted 

 experiments — the one continuous organisation for the advancement of agricultural 

 knowledge the United Kingdom hast to show, and the largest individual con- 

 tribution to such knowledge^were initiated. These two events are evidence of 

 the comparatively larger part agriculture played in national life and thought then 

 than it does now. Up to this time it is doubtful if agriculture had made any 

 substantial advance since the time of the Romans. The work of Liebig, Gilbert, 

 and Lawes in one direction only — the feeding of the plant— has resulted in the 



