HOW SHALL AGKICULTUKE HEbT OLTAIN THE HELP OF SCIENCE? 3i7 



lectures to teachers, or classes for teachers held in the vacation months^ 

 are of the greatest use if good men can be secured as instructors. 



We must now speak of the relations of County Councils to agricultural 

 investigation. This kind of work has been undertaken at present by 

 only a few counties, and by them to a very limited extent: public opinion 

 is, indeed, not nearly so developed upon the subject of investigation as it 

 is on that of education. Practical investigations are, however, urgently 

 required if the operations of agriculture are to be carried out in a 

 scientific manner. The science of agriculture is, in fact, as yet in its 

 infancy, and can be perfected only by well-arranged experiment. Thei^ 

 is room for an immense variety of work. Every substance which the 

 farmer uses, every living organism (plant or animal) with which he is 

 concerned, every operation he conducts, must be thoroughly understood if 

 it is to be employed to the best advantage. Great Britain is singularly 

 behind other civilised countries in the work of agricultural investigation. 

 The reason has apparently been very simple. In most European countries, 

 and in the United States and Canada, the initiative has been taken by the 

 Govei'nment. Ministers, having a just idea of the conditions on which 

 national prosperity depends, have succeeded in obtaining public funds for 

 the support of experiment stations, institutions provided with laboratories 

 and skilled workers, and devoted to the elucidation of agricultural 

 problems. The German Empire alone has about fifty-four Versuchs- 

 Stationen, without reckoning the public laboratories occupied chiefly with 

 the analysis of manures and seed-testing. In England agricultural 

 investigation has been left to private enterprise, which during the- 

 present century has produced one first-class experiment station — that of 

 Rothamsted — of which we are all rightly proud, but which is wholly 

 inadequate for the growing needs of the country. 



I am not at this moment advocating the immediate creation of many 

 first-class experiment stations, though there is ample scope for such in the- 

 hands of competent workers. One first-class station should certainly be 

 at once started under the immediate control uf a reorganised Department 

 of Agriculture, as without this the national investigations, which would 

 become one of the functions of this department, could not be carried 

 out. The great need at the present time is the creation of numerous, 

 local stations, to work upon the practical problems of each locality, 

 and so become centres of scientific teaching and scientific demonstra- 

 tion. If Parliament were to offer to give 1,000^. a year' towards the 

 support of a county experiment station, erected and maintained by the- 

 County Council, and subject to the inspection and approval of the De- 

 partment of Agriculture, a great start would be at once made in the right 

 direction. 



A few words may be said as to the kind of investigations to be- 

 undertaken by a local experiment station. The subjects taken up will of 

 course depend upon the style of farming in the neighbourhood, the object 

 being in every case to bring scientific knowledge and methods into actual 

 touch -with the farmer's work. Some of the experiments would be 

 carried out on selected farms, possessing soils and climates typical of 

 considerable areas in the county. Comparative trials of different 



' This should be regarded as a minimum sum. In the United States each State- 

 receives 3,000^. annually from the National Exchequer towards the maintenance of 

 its experiment station. 



