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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 622. 



the public purse, and to do this were com- 

 pelled to take up first the pressing prac- 

 tical problems and to give research a sec- 

 ondary place. But their very success in 

 demonstrating their usefulness, as shown 

 by their increasing appropriations and by 

 the change in the public temper familiar 

 to all of us, threatens to be their perma- 

 nent undoing as agencies of scientific re- 

 search. From an attitude of skepticism 

 the public has passed to one of undue 

 credulity, and the experiment stations to- 

 day have need to heed the ancient warning, 

 *Woe unto you when all men shall speak 

 well of you ! for so did their fathers to the 

 false prophets.' Indifference has given 

 place to urgent demands for assistance, 

 and the pressure upon these institutions 

 for facts of immediate practical utility, 

 which shall justify to the public the liber- 

 ality with which they are supported and 

 lay the foundation for greater appropria- 

 tions in the future, is so intense as to 

 require unusual courage and breadth of 

 vision on the part of him who will stand 

 for the needs of real scientific investiga- 

 tion. 



The ever-present tendencies toward pre- 

 mature and sensational exploiting of re- 

 sults and towards officialism in science are 

 likewise dangers which need constantly to 

 be guarded against. A recent writer, 

 speaking of the reasons why agricultural 

 science is often discredited with the prac- 

 tical man, says : 



Science, too, is sometimes responsible for an- 

 other form of apparent contradiction (between 

 the results of science and those of practical experi- 

 ence), many of her representatives being only too 

 much inclined to generalize the results obtained 

 in a special case, and in particular to publish pre- 

 maturely. This error is more or less fostered 

 both by officials and by agricultural organizations. 

 When a report must be published yearly upon all 

 sorts of scientific work, whether completed or not, 

 in which case ' results ' are naturally expected 

 and planned for, there is produced a literary bal- 



last that is a burden upon scientific work and 

 which carries with it the serious danger that the 

 agricultural public, before which these unripe 

 fruits are zealously spread by the agricultural 

 press (especially in the case of official reports), 

 will feel the evil effects in its purse and will lose 

 its appetite for all scientific results. The subse- 

 quent continuation of the investigations then de- 

 velops the limitations, corrections and specializa- 

 tions and the unripe conclusions are altered or 

 sometimes even entirely overthrown and admitted 

 to be erroneous. This is most injurious to prac- 

 tical agriculture, and has already led to great 

 losses and brought science into deserved disrepute. 



In my opinion it is not at all essential to bring 

 new achievements before the general public with 

 the utmost promptness and to publish as much 

 and as speedily as possible, but rather that all 

 which is published shall be trustworthy and se- 

 curely grounded, not only by individual investiga- 

 tion, but, as far as circumstances demand, by the 

 due mention, consideration or critical discussion 

 of whatever other investigators have previously 

 said and discovered concerning the subject. Now- 

 adays, the haste for publication has made it ac- 

 tually the fashion in many circles to ignore the 

 available literature, or to pirate it, and to act 

 as if one were the first who had laid this egg. 

 It is often the case, too, that the reader is sup- 

 plied only with summaries or other average or 

 final figures, while all deeper insight into the 

 course of development and the details of the in- 

 vestigation is prevented by their silent omission. 

 This method of publication is unscientific and 

 superficial, and he who uses it, especially when 

 he avowedly substitutes the authority of his name, 

 does not perhaps realize how great is the pre- 

 sumption toward the reader of which he is guilty 

 in such a method of presentation. 



The unholy thirst for notoriety, too, has alas 

 struck deep root in agricultural science and has 

 developed such vigorous shoots that it has be- 

 come a shame for those who are guilty of it and 

 has fairly compromised our science. Unfortu- 

 nately, no one has yet been found to duly scourge 

 and pillory the false and unscientific nature of 

 these methods. 



All these growing evils are signs of degenera- 

 tion. Let us guard ourselves against further 

 cultivation of appearances and externalities. It 

 is high time that modest, quiet, genuine work 

 should take the place of this haste and false am- 

 bition, for agricultural science, as a relatively 

 young science, stands in much too exposed a posi- 



