800 TRANSACTIONS OF* StTB-SECTrON f. 



use of fertilisers drawn from either fossil deposits or manufacturing wasta-product^ 

 that lias brought np the yield of our crops to an entirely new level. Lawes 

 reports that the average crop of wheat in his district at the beginning of his 

 experiments was about twenty bushels per acre ; to-day it is over thirty bushels. 

 Of course it is not fertilisers only that have done this. Scientific method has also 

 been applied to the machines which cultivate the soil, to the breeds of plants 

 growing there, and to the eradication of the diseases from which they suffer. 



I do not suggest that agriculture has not shared in the benefits with whicli 

 science, physical and social, has richly endowed the whole field of industrial 

 effort, urban and rural. But when all is said, there is surely a marked disparity 

 between the attention given to urban and to rural afliairs by those engaged in 

 the application of science to the material and social advancement of mankind. 

 In the sphere of the physical sciences a great gulf no doubt separates the 

 agriculture of Virgil from that of Sir John Lawes ; but how insignificant it 

 is beside the ocean of knowledge which stretches between Archimedes and Lord 

 Kelvin. 



It is not, however, with the knowledge itself, of the nature and amount of 

 ■which I have but the ha7,iest conception, that I am here concerned, I am quite 

 certain that the British Association — I might say this audience —is in possesaiou 

 of knowledge which, if applied, would enormously add to the agricultural wealth 

 of all countries, especially my own. The "work of the moment, by far the most 

 important work of our Sub-Section, relates to the diffusion of this knowledge. 

 This end is to be attained in two ways — by an improvement in the means of 

 translating the research work of the field and laboratory into the workaday 

 experience of the farmer and by a co-ordination of the work done for the 

 advancement of the industry with that which seeks to improve the economic and 

 social character of those who are making their living out of the soil. Deficient 

 as is the provision for research in agriculture in this country, the working farmer 

 is still very far from utilising all the knowledge which science has already put at 

 his disposal. The intellectual apathy which the governing class displays towards 

 the acquisition of new knowledge is refiected in the neglect the farmer shows in 

 learning what has already been acquired. But, although I have every confidence 

 in their source, I admit that these views are second-hand. I shall be more at 

 home in the region of the other sciences which are concerned with the human as 

 distinct from the material conditions. 



(2) Economic Science and the Business of Farming. 



Coming tlien to the second factor in our problem — as I have presented it — let 

 us consider for a moment the business of farming in its relation to economic 

 science. A story — founded, I have good reason to believe, on fact — will serve 

 better than any arguments I could use to show the necessity of paying due regard 

 to the commercial as well as to the technical aspects of agricultural problems. 

 Some of Liebig's pupils, fresh from the laboratory and the world of abstract 

 thought, set out to make a new conquest in the world of fact. They procured a 

 fine tract of land in tlie Argentine, upon which they applied all the latest dis- 

 coveries of agricultural chemistry. A large capital and a wealth of new know- 

 ledge were expended in restoring the fertility of the land, and the land, no 

 doubt, responded to the treatment. But the money, without the science, would 

 have sufficed to purchase fresh tracts of virgin soil ; and thus, while the harvest 

 of these uneconomic laboratory men brought credit to their mastery of scientific 

 truth, it did not save their credit in the bank — and tbey were sold up. 



From my own observation and experience I should say that farmers are more 

 backward in their business than in their technical methods. I am convinced that 

 there is no more important work at the moment than to stimulate economic 

 thouirht in the country in order to give the rural population an intelligent interest 

 in its own problems. My administrative experience on this point is pertinent. 

 In the Irish Department, which was concerned with the advancement of rural 

 life, it was our constant aim, while retaining central supervision, to delegate the 

 administration of the local work more and more to local representative bodiee. 



