Apkil 23, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



651 



addition, the field of the chemistry of soils, 

 fertilizers and plant nutrition, entirely 

 aside from the usual scope and direction 

 of the work of the agronomist, is amply 

 broad for one man to cover if he becomes 

 properly familiar with the past literature 

 of the subject, and keeps abreast of the 

 times in connection with the many experi- 

 mental and analytical features involved. 

 The fact that this field will lead him into 

 touch with, or even at times to encroach 

 upon, that of the bacteriologist, physical 

 chemist, physiological botanist or agron- 

 omist, furnishes no ground for the abolish- 

 ment or restriction of one or the other, but 

 rather emphasizes the importance of main- 

 taining these different points of view, since 

 they are likely at any time to furnish a 

 special vantage ground, or new avenue for 

 the attack upon some difficult problem, 

 which, approached from any other direc- 

 tion, might not admit of solution. 



The most hopeful feature connected with 

 the teaching of agriculture in the United 

 States at the present moment is the rapid 

 rate at which the subject is being divided 

 into specialties, for it is only in this way 

 that it can ever be hoped that its students 

 can acquire the best knowledge of the the- 

 ory and practise in any given line, and no 

 alarm need be felt if these subjects have a 

 close "touch of elbows." When a teacher 

 covers too large a field he is sure to be weak 

 in his knowledge of either the theory or 

 practise and a condition thus arises which 

 interferes with science taking its true place 

 in its relation to the advance of the practise 

 of agriculture in its several departments. 

 Indeed there is little ground for wonder- 

 ment that the classically educated man who 

 saw, a few years since, a single "professor 

 of agriculture" struggling to cover super- 

 ficially the whole of his broad field, with 

 little if any of his subject-matter reduced 

 to pedagogic form, should not have been 

 moved to feel that he was merely placing a 



cheap and useless veneer over the other 

 sciences. If agricultural chemistry is to- 

 day in a somewhat similar position then 

 surely the time has come when, instead of 

 its being thrown overboard because of its 

 breadth, it should, like general agriculture, 

 be properly subdivided and given the full- 

 est opportunity for its development. It 

 may be claimed that agricultural chemistry 

 covers partially the same field as agronomy 

 and hence should be eliminated; but the 

 attempt to place such artificial barriers 

 between the different sciences and to pro- 

 vide that one shall not encroach upon the 

 field of the other prevents the greatest 

 progress and interferes with the organiza- 

 tion of effective and sound research. The 

 need in such cases is provision for sym- 

 pathetic and hearty cooperation. Indeed, 

 the erection of such barriers is no less per- 

 nicious than the elimination of view-point 

 which would come from the pursuit of 

 pure science by itself, in the university, 

 unaccompanied by any attempt to study 

 and teach its application, since each fur- 

 nishes a stimulus to the other. The addi- 

 tional point of view of the professor of 

 applied science is too valuable to the uni- 

 versity to be lost. It is not only vital to 

 the welfare of agriculture and to most of 

 our great industrial undertakings, but is 

 helpful and even inspiring to those pur- 

 suing pure science as such. 



Apparently the result of the present gen- 

 eral movement as represented, by Thiel is 

 to remove the higher teaching and research 

 in science as related to agriculture, entirely 

 or largely from the universities and to con- 

 centrate it in connection with purely agri- 

 cultural institutions, siTch for example as 

 "Landwirtsehaftliche Hochschulen. " If 

 such a general policy were adopted in this 

 country it would mean adding to our pres- 

 ent agricultural colleges the highest grade 

 of university instruction in the sciences 

 related to agriculture, rather than adding 



