678 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION M. 
of lectures and advice within its own sphere of influence. How specialised the 
institution may become must depend upon the numbers of Universities available, 
but there is a rea] economy in specialisation, in inducing each institution to 
throw its whole strength into one line of work, for Universities, like men, 
cannot afford to be Jacks of all trades. 
Many of my hearers may think I am sketching out a very ambitious and 
extensive programme about which the only certainty is the creation of a con- 
siderable number of salaried posts for men of science, but when I think of the 
futilities upon which so much public money is spent in every country, I am 
almost ashamed to justify the expenditure by pointing out that an increase of 
ten per cent. in any one of the staple crops of a country, such an increase as is 
well within the powers of the scientific man to effect in no great length of time, 
would pay over and over again for the organisation I have indicated. Even it 
the research went on for the sake of knowledge alone, every nation is able to 
allow itself a certain amount of intellectual luxury. Moreover, to return to 
my original text, it is only by the aid of agricultural science that the world is 
ultimately going to be allowed to enjoy any luxuries at all; as the fundamentally 
acricultural basis of society again becomes apparent, the one thing that will 
save it from sinking down into a collection of families each wringing a bare 
subsistence. from a tiny plot of ground will be the application of the fullest 
knowledge to the utilisation of the land. 
