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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LII. No. 1344 



than does any other form of industrial re- 

 search from a lack of realization on the part 

 of the general public of its possibilities. This 

 Is due, I believe, to the familiarity on the part 

 of the majority of people with agricultural 

 operations. Any one will concede the value of 

 research in relation to manufacturing indus- 

 tries involving chemical actions. The great 

 majority of people are innocent of any knowl- 

 edge of chemistry, and regard it as a highly 

 complex, mysterious study capable of perform- 

 ing all sorts of wonders — in which opinion they 

 are not discouraged by the chemists. But 

 every one thinks he knows something of agri- 

 culture and many people think they are experts 

 at it. To most people agriculture is simply 

 taking a little care of plants and animals which 

 would grow anyway. They can see no need of 

 investigation in such familiar operations as 

 ploughing, harrowing, harvesting and thrash- 

 ing. And it is through average public opinion 

 that the expensive support for research must 

 be obtained. The head of an agricultural col- 

 lege informs us that it has just taken him 

 three years to convince his board that a plant 

 pathologist has any useful duties to perform. 



Of course all technical agriculturists know 

 that agriculture, like the other industries, has 

 reached a stage at which little progress can be 

 expected from casual observation or ordinary 

 experience. Progress will result only from the 

 careful application of scientific facts and 

 principles which are known only to those who 

 have been properly trained, or which have not 

 yet been discovered. Agricultural problems are 

 just as difficult and complex as those of any 

 other industry. Our confidence that great 

 progress will be made by the application of 

 scientific principles in agriculture results from 

 our knowledge of what has been accomplished 

 in this way in the past. The achievements of 

 agricultural scientific research in actual finan- 

 cial benefits to the country are not surpassed 

 by those of any other industry. This is not 

 the occasion, however, either to mention the 

 problems which have been solved or to point 

 out those which can be solved by the applica- 

 tion of scientific principles. Owing to the fact 

 that such a large proportion of our population 



must always be engaged in agriculture, any 

 advance through scientific work must result in 

 benefits which in the aggregate surpass those 

 in other industries. 



My second point is that technical research 

 in agriculture involves research in an un- 

 usually wide range of basic subjects and that 

 the technical researcher in agriculture is there- 

 for peculiarly dependent on so-called pure 

 science. Agricultural problems involve, among 

 other things, the physics, chemistry, biology 

 and geology of the soil, physiology of plants 

 and animals (itself including many basic sub- 

 jects), pathology of plants and animals, syste- 

 matic biology, including entomology, foreign 

 plant introduction, genetics, bacteriology, me- 

 chanics, climatology, sociology and economics. 

 Many problems involve several of these sub- 

 jects. There are, of course, routine problems 

 such as testing varieties, rotations, etc. ; which 

 may involve little more than general agricul- 

 tural knowledge. But the problems which will 

 result in new departures of importance are 

 likely to demand a profound knowledge of 

 basic subjects. The big advances requiring 

 only superficial science have mostly been made, 

 and progress in future will depend more and 

 more on profound study in more than one 

 basic subject. The workers in these basic sub- 

 jects supply the raw material — scientific in- 

 formation — which the technical agriculturists 

 work up into manufactured articles — ^better 

 agricultural practises. To sustain our meta- 

 phor further these manufactured articles are 

 transported by the agricultural educationists 

 to the consuming farmers. 



Of course, as in other cases, the workers in 

 these different fields (" fields " is surely a good 

 word in an agricultural discussion) can not be 

 sharply segregated. Many technical men en- 

 gaged primarily in improving practises are also 

 spreading information among the farmers; 

 many of them are making discoveries in theo- 

 retical science. The same piece of work may 

 involve both discovery and application. To use 

 a simile from our own subject, the technical 

 agriculturist may be considered a cross be- 

 tween the so-called pure scientist and the 

 farmer. And as in Mendelian crosses, there 



