590 TRANSACTIONS OF SUB-SECTION K. 



had had to contend. He was asked whether the Board of Agriculture and the 

 scientific authorities were not able to help him. He replied that they had done 

 what they could, that they had recommended first one thing and then another, 

 and he had formed the opinion that they were only in an experimental stage. 

 He was perfectly right, and he would hardly have been wrong had he said that 

 in these things science is only approaching the experimental stage. This should 

 be notorious. There is nothing to extenuate. To affect otherwise would be un- 

 worthy of the dignity of science. 



Those who have the means of informing the public mind on the state of 

 agricultural science should make clear that though something can be done to help 

 the practical man already, the chief realisation of the hopes of that science is 

 still very far away, and that it can only be reached by long and strenuous effort, 

 expended in many various directions, most of which must seem to the uninitiated 

 mere profitless wandering. So only will the confidence of the laity be perma- 

 nently assured towards research. 



Nowhere is the need for wide views of our problems more evident than in 

 the study of plant-diseases. Hitherto this side of agriculture and of horticul- 

 ture, though full of possibilities for the introduction of scientific method, has 

 been examined only in the crudest and most empirical fashion. To name the 

 disease, to burn the affected plants, and to ply the crop with all the sprays and 

 washes in succession ought not to be regarded as the utmost that science can 

 attempt. There is at the present time hardly any comprehensive study of the 

 morbid physiology of plants comparable with that which has been so greatly de- 

 veloped in application to animals. The nature of the resistance to disease cha- 

 racteristic of so many varieties, and the modes by which it may be ensured, offers 

 a most attractive field for research, but it is one in which the advance must 

 be made by the development, of pure science, and those who engage in it must 

 be prepared for a long period of labour without ostensible practical results. It 

 has seemed to me that the most likely method of attack is here, as often, an 

 indirect one. We should probably do best if we left the direct and special needs 

 of agriculture for a time out of account, and enlisted the services of pathologists 

 trained in the study of disease as it affects man and animals, a science already 

 developed and far advanced towards success. Such a man, if he were to devote 

 himself to the investigation of the same problems in the case of plants could, 

 I am convinced, make discoveries which would not merely advance the theory of 

 disease-resistance in general very greatly, but would much promote the invention 

 of rational and successful treatment. 



As regards the application of Genetics to practice, the case is not very dif- 

 ferent. When I go to the Temple Show or to a great exhibition of live stock my 

 first feeling is one of admiration and deep humility. Where all is so splendidly 

 done and results so imposing are already attained, is it not mere impertinence to 

 suppose that any advice we are able to give is likely to be of value? 



But as soon as one enters into conversation with breeders, one finds that 

 almost all have before them some ideal to which they have not yet attained, 

 operations to perform that they would fain do with greater ease and certainty, 

 and that, as a matter of fact, they are looking to scientific research as a possible 

 source of the greater knowledge which they require. Can we, without presump- 

 tion, declare that genetic science is now able to assist these inquirers? In certain 

 selected cases it undoubtedly can — and I will say, moreover, that if the practical 

 men and we students could combine our respective experiences into one head, 

 these cases would already be numerous. On the other hand, it is equally clear that 

 in a great range of examples practice is so far ahead that science can scarcely 

 hope in finite time even to represent what has been done, still less to better the 

 performance. We cannot hope to improve the Southdown sheep for its own 

 districts, to take a second off the trotting record, to increase the flavour of 

 the muscat of Alexandria, or to excel the orange and pink of the rose Juliet. 

 Nothing that we know could have made it easier to produce the Rambler roses, 

 or even to evoke the latest novelties in sweet peas, though it may be claimed 

 that the genetic system of the sweet pea is, as things go, fairly well understood. 

 To do any of these things would require a control of events so lawless and rare 

 that for ages they must probably remain classed as accidents. On the other 

 hand, the modes by which combinations can be made, and by which new forms 



