152 



SCIENCE 



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



true, in obtaining in all cases suitable 

 training, but their spirit and energy are 

 certainly laudable, even calling often for 

 restraint in the interest of health and the 

 higher service. 



A heavy weight of responsibility rests 

 upon the young man now preparing for a 

 career in agricultural research. It is not 

 enough that he have some special knowl- 

 edge and skill in a narrow field such as soil 

 analysis, genetics or vegetable pathology. 

 He must have scholarship, breadth of 

 knowledge and vision enough to know the 

 relation of his specialty to other branches 

 of science, and the bearing of it all upon 

 the business and the practise of food pro- 

 duction, that is, farming. 



For the purposes of the investigator a 

 real knowledge of and sympathy with the 

 actual operation of the farm and the prob- 

 lems of the farmer is not only desirable, but 

 essential. Farming is a productive, not a 

 speculative industry, and the problems of 

 agriculture are those of production and 

 distribution, not those of special oppor- 

 tunity. 



Moreover, farming is a private business 

 upon which the welfare of families depends 

 — not a few scattered people, but a full 

 third at least of all the population and con- 

 stituting entire communities. This frac- 

 tion of the race must not be disregarded or 

 the earth will avenge herself not only upon 

 the unsuccessful farmer, but upon the peo- 

 ple as a whole, whose heritage, after all, 

 the land is. 



The agricultural scientist, therefore, 

 must not make mistakes, or he will lead a 

 whole people to disaster. Our philosophies 

 may be wrong; they can be readjusted. 

 Our conceptions of the solar system may be 

 incomplete or wholly erroneous ; but every- 

 day life will go on about the same. How- 

 ever, if we entertain wrong conceptions 

 about the serious business of food produc- 



tion, the consequences are swift and 

 merciless. 



If we get too little out of the earth, pop- 

 ulation is unduly restricted or unutterably 

 miserable; and if we win our sustenance 

 by methods destructive rather than perma- 

 nent, then our successors, if not we our- 

 selves, will pay the penalty of our error or 

 of our piracy. Science is our only reliance, 

 but the agricultural engineer must make 

 no mistakes. He must be no blind leader 

 of the blind. Therefore he must know the 

 business of farming. 



Now this is easier said than realized. The 

 college studertt has lived alllhis life in school. 

 Learning has been his occupation. More- 

 over, we shall tell him that if he expects to 

 be really valuable, he must not stop with 

 the bachelor's degree, but he must do so 

 much in addition and do it so well that he 

 will inevitably and in good time achieve 

 the doctorate. 



How then can this young man know by 

 experience the business of farming? He 

 can not know it as the farmer knows it 

 after fifty years of earning a living and of 

 clothing and educating the family he has 

 raised. This prospective scientist will work 

 for a salary, which means an assured liv- 

 ing while he studies and attempts to solve 

 the problems of those who live by produc- 

 tion. 



The problem for the young scientist is 

 not easy, and that is the reason for discus- 

 sing it at length. It takes twelve years of 

 child life to finish the high school and pre- 

 pare for college. The student is twenty to 

 twenty-two at graduation. Three years 

 more for a doctorate puts him at twenty- 

 three to twenty-five. Besides, there is mar- 

 riage to be considered, for farming is a 

 married man's job, and bachelors as a class 

 will never solve its problems. When and 

 how is this man to get experience in actual 

 farming ? 



Experience in supporting a family on 



