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SECTION M.—AGRICULTURE. 275 
Agricultural progress must be dependent upon research, and no 
phase of our agricultural educational system is so full of great promise 
for the future as the comprehensive research organisation, covering 
practically every field of agricultural research, which has been brought 
into existence during the past twelve years, and developed upon lines 
which ensure an attractive career to a large number of the most capable 
research workers coming out of our universities. In praising the 
Research Institute scheme I am not unmindful of the needs of the 
independent research worker and the spare-time research work of teach- 
ing staffs—the type of research work to which we owe so much in this 
country—and it is with some anxiety that I have watched the distribu- 
tion by the Ministry of Agriculture of the modest resources available 
for the support of this class of work. I trust that my fears are ground- 
less, but I am afraid of a tendency to deflect such resources towards 
the work of the Research Institutes, a tendency which in common 
fairness to the independent worker should be most strenuously resisted. 
With a sufficiently liberal conception of the class of work which can be 
effectively carried through by the independent worker there should 
be no difficulty in allocating these moneys to the purposes for which 
they are intended. 
In suggesting, as I did a few moments ago, that in proportion to 
the means available agricultural research is perhaps more adequately 
provided for at the moment than other branches of agricultural educa- 
tional activity, nothing is further from my mind than to imply that 
greater resources could not be effectively absorbed in this direction, 
but I am guided by the feeling that a due measure of proportion should 
be maintained between research and the organisation behind it designed 
to translate the findings of research into economic practice, and to 
secure that each advance of knowledge shall be made known quickly 
and effectively throughout the industry. 
no Aa 
It is chiefly in the latter direction that agricultural science can make 
an immediate and effective contribution to the alleviation of the present 
crisis, since agricultural research in the main does not lend itself to 
the ‘ speeding-up ’ necessary for quick action. The same applies also 
to formal educational work, which must necessarily exert its influence 
on the industry but slowly. 
The one line of approach along which agricultural science can make 
its influence felt quickly is that of advisory work, which consists in the 
skilful application of existing knowledge to the solution of practical 
problems, or at most the carrying out of investigations of a simple 
type, with a view to securing guidance as to the solution of the problem 
in time for effective action to be taken. 
It is, therefore, to the possibilities of such advisory work that I 
propose to turn my attention in more detail. The root difficulty of 
agricultural educational propaganda in the past has been to secure a 
sufficiently intimate and widespread contact with the farmer, and for 
_ this purpose no agency at our command is so valuable as advisory work, 
_ since it ensures a contact with the individual farmer which is both direct 
and sympathetic, originating, indeed, in most cases out of a direct 
request for help. The difficulties in the way of extending advisory work 
