August 30, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



276 



INCREASE OF CROP DUE TO GEOWTH OP CLOVER 



anxious not to sin in such a serious matter 

 and, therefore, I will ask you to take this 

 chapter as giving an example of the way 

 in which we have approached some of the 

 fundamental problems in Canadian agri- 

 culture. To review, even in a similarly 

 sketchy manner, our work during the past 

 twenty years for the various branches- 

 stock feeding, dairying, fruit growing, etc. 

 ^would be now quite impossible. Investi- 

 gations that occupy several years, such as, 

 for instance, the one undertaken to learn 

 the effect of different feeding stuffs on the 

 quality of the pork produced and in which 

 the fat from more than 300 pigs was an- 

 alyzed, can not be summarized in a sentence 

 or two. Of a similarly protracted char- 

 acter have been the experiments to ascer- 

 tain the losses that take place in the pres- 

 ervation of barnyard manure, in winter and 

 summer; of experiments with various cul- 

 tures or preparations of nitrogen-fixing 

 bacteria— a matter that has engaged our 

 attention since 1897 owing to its relation- 

 ship to the maintenance of soil fertility 

 through the leguminosse; of experimental 

 work carried on in different parts of the 

 Dominion to determine how far soil mois- 

 ture can be controlled by various systems 

 of soil managements, more particularly in 

 orchards ; of reclamation work on swamp 

 muck soils, of which there are large areas 

 in eastern Canada as well as in British 



Columbia. Then, again, chemical work has 

 been brought into requisition for determin- 

 ing the relative value of Canadian forage 

 crops— grasses, Indian corn, rape, etc., and 

 the period in their growth at which they 

 are most nutritious; for the examination 

 of sugar beets in connection with the es- 

 tablishment in Canada of the beet sugar 

 industry ; for tracing the effect of environ- 

 ment and cross-breeding on the composition 

 of wheats, with a view to assisting in the 

 discrimination between the many wheats 

 produced by hybridization— a work that 

 has largely received the attention of the 

 experimental farms. And so I might con- 

 tinue, for our field of operations has been 

 a wide one and we have endeavored to make 

 the chemical work useful to as large a num- 

 ber as possible. Perhaps a thought that has 

 been uppermost in my mind, and in the 

 minds of others engaged in this work from 

 the beginning, is that while all our investi- 

 gations should be conducted with the spirit 

 of true scientific research they should be 

 undertaken as far as possible with a defi- 

 nite, practical purpose in view. So that 

 while our work, I hope, rings true, judged 

 from the chemical standpoint, it may also 

 be accounted of some practical worth to 

 that national industry for the assistance of 

 which our institutions were established. The 

 motto of the Royal Agricultural Society of 

 England, "Practise with Science," always 



