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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1155 



have been supplemented until the total 

 revenues of certain institutions for agri- 

 cultural research amount to no less than 

 $200,000 annually. 



This combined federal and state program 

 aims directly at an adequate and a perma- 

 nent food-supply, and with equal directness 

 it proposes to retain upon the land, if pos- 

 sible, a fair share of the intelligence, the 

 learning, and the culture of the American 

 people. This latter purpose may be called 

 Utopian, but a little reflection will convince 

 even the most skeptical that in no other way 

 can our lands be properly handled, for 

 farming is after all and in the last analysis 

 an individual affair. 



The incidental effect upon citizenship of 

 such a systematic effort, especially in a 

 democracy, is an interesting sociological 

 and economic question, but it is quite aside 

 from the present purpose, which is to an- 

 alyze the agencies that have been awakened 

 in the name of agricultural science and to 

 distinguish as clearly as possible between 

 those that are really helpful and others that 

 by accident or otherwise have become at- 

 tached like barnacles to the ship and whose 

 load is even less serious than their resist- 

 ance. 



The sudden establishment of a national 

 system of fifty institutions under combined 

 federal and state support, and the engaging 

 upon this extensive scale in both education 

 and research in a hitherto neglected, if not 

 despised, field was certain to be followed by 

 results both desirable and undesirable. The 

 combination is still further complicated by 

 the fact that the new field has suddenly 

 become popular, drawing into its vortex 

 amounts of money never before equaled, 

 and engaging the attention of all sorts and 

 conditions of men, some seeking opportu- 

 nity for real service, others attracted by the 

 loaves and fishes, even by the- crumbs. 

 It was as inevitable that certain results 



should follow the agencies here invoked as 

 that other effects should follow causes. 



For example, it is impossible to launch 

 so pretentious a program without a vast 

 amount of good resulting, and in this re- 

 spect the most sanguine enthusiasts have 

 not been disappointed. It is impossible to 

 accomplish a public service of this charac- 

 ter and magnitude without developing a 

 body of earnest, capable and devoted scien- 

 tists who work, not for reward, but for the 

 good that they can do, and it is my desire 

 here and now to pay tribute of respect to 

 the hundreds, yes thousands of men and 

 women who labor both day and night, who 

 expose and often destroy their health in 

 carrying forward this great work. They 

 shall have their reward. 



But it is also impossible to suddenly en- 

 gage upon an extensive scale in a new and 

 undeveloped field without drawing into the 

 service both inadequately trained and 

 mediocre men. It is impossible that a field 

 should be popular without attracting the 

 sensationally minded, and it is equally un- 

 likely that so large an amount of public 

 money could be expended without the crea- 

 tion of a vast and complicated administra- 

 tive machinery. 



It is for us who have been in this work 

 almost from its beginning and who have 

 seen with our own eyes both the wheat and 

 the tares developing side by side to criti- 

 cally and somewhat sharply distinguish be- 

 tween the two. Not only should we do this 

 among ourselves, but, difficult and unpleas- 

 ant as the service is, we owe it to the pub- 

 lie, we owe it to our institutions, and we 

 owe it to ourselves to frankly state the con- 

 ditions as they are, with a view to the cor- 

 rection of certain evils that have crept in 

 and which, if not exterminated, will destroy 

 not only the best work in agricultural sci- 

 ence, but even the institutions that were 

 founded and are operated for its advance- 

 ment. 



