268 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
The Need for Fuller Co-operation. 
Looking back over the list of problems it will be seen that they are all 
too complex to be completely solved by any single worker. Problems of 
crop production need the co-operation of agriculturists, plant physiologists, 
soil investigators, and statisticians. Hven plant breeding necessitates the 
help of a physiologist who can specify just what the breeder should aim 
at producing. And this gives the key-note to the period of agricultural 
science on which we have now entered—it is becoming more and more a 
period of co-operation between men viewing the problem from different 
points of view. Good individual work will of course always continue to 
be done, but the future will undoubtedly see a great expansion of team work 
such as has already led to important results in medical research, and 
such as we know from our experience at Rothamsted is capable of giving 
admirable results in agricultural science. 
The team work should not be confined to individuals working at the 
same institution. The world would gain greatly if co-operation such as 
now exists between the Imperial College Botany School and Rothamsted 
could be effected between other great institutions devoted to agricultural 
science in the various countries of the world. To take only one illustration : 
how much could be accomplished in the study of the very difficult alkali 
problem if it were possible to organise a team representing such great agri- 
cultural stations as, for instance, California and Utah, the Departments of 
Agriculture of India and other of the great Dominions affected, Rothamsted, 
Hissink’s school, with power to lay down experiments anywhere and money 
to carry them out. And if extended co-operation of this kind should prove 
impossible of attainment, much could be done by fostering co-operation 
between the Agricultural Institutions of the Empire. There are certain 
great problems which are common to large parts of the Empire where the 
experience of one part would be of great value to the rest. The institutions 
in Britain, for example, have experience of problems connected with land 
long since settled and brought into cultivation, where men must produce 40 
or more bushels per acre of wheat and 6 to 10 tons per acre of potatoes to 
make these crops pay, and where animal husbanelry must be run on sound 
and economic lines. Canada has an unrivalled experience with wheat, and 
in the Western provinces has a magnificent chance for studying one of the 
most important problems of the day—the water supply to the crop. 
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, East, West, and Tropical Africa, 
India, the West Indies—to mention only a few in the great family that 
forms the British Empire—all have their special lines in agricultural 
development ; each has some achievement that can be shown with pride 
and in the certainty that its study will benefit others. The Empire has 
already its Conference of Premiers, why should it not have its conference for 
agricultural science and practice ? 
With fuller co-operation both of men and of institutions we could 
do much to overcome the present difficulty in regard to utilising the in- 
formation we already possess. In the last thirty years an immense stock 
of knowledge has been obtained as to soils and crops—knowledge that 
ought to be of supreme value in interpreting the facts of Nature as shown 
inthe field. Itis stored in great numbers of volumes which line the shelves 
of our libraries, and there much of it rests undisturbed in dignified oblivion. 
In the main it consists of single threads followed out more or less carefully ; 
