August 22, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



251 



enjoyment — may again deal in formulas, 

 and theories, books and philosophies, and 

 thus give out to the working public fine 

 philosophies which may yet leave the 

 worker helplessly in the dark as to what 

 to do. 



My belief is that those who undertake to 

 improve agricultural methods, who under- 

 take to furnish the principles which shall 

 direct farm processes, must not be satisfied 

 with the mere study of such principles in 

 the laboratory and the writing of books, 

 which books and pamphlets, because of the 

 nature of things, will be used by laymen 

 for the instruction of the worker. Such 

 men should dictate to themselves the study 

 of actual life conditions of the particular 

 crop which they have under consideration. 

 In directing farm operations so that they 

 shall leave the toiler any remuneration, the 

 scientist must remember that reasoning by 

 analogy is not apt to give him a reputation 

 of infallibility before the farming public. 



This is one of the common errors of the 

 present advocates of crop rotation. They 

 give almost every conceivable reason why 

 a crop rotation should be conducted, other 

 than real reasons why the crop grows bet- 

 ter under a particular type of crop rota- 

 tion. For example, one of the chief argu- 

 ments is that the farmer will have more 

 kinds of crop to sell — will not have all his 

 eggs in one basket. The writer considers 

 such an argument as no reason at all for 

 crop rotation. Indeed, aU other types of 

 business are conducted on the opposite 

 basis, namely, a man should do one thing 

 and do it well, and the farmer can not 

 understand the business or professional 

 man who reasons one way for himself and 

 another for the farmer. 



It is my belief that the present reason 

 why crop rotation and proper systems of 

 manuring are not properly followed rests 

 not in the innate shiftless or disinterested 



nature of the American farmer, but be- 

 cause such secondary reasons have been 

 given in lieu of real argviments. For ex- 

 ample, crop rotation has almost invariably 

 been argued on the basis that it rests the 

 land or improves its fertility, and yet we 

 have been unable to find any proof what- 

 soever of the truth of such assertion. The 

 writer believes the reason farmers have not 

 followed a persistent and consistent crop 

 rotation is due to the fact that we have 

 not heretofore been given the real reasons 

 which primarily or essentially demand 

 crop rotation in order that healthful, 

 proper yielding plants may be produced 

 on the land. 



It is confusing to the farmer and to the 

 layman teacher to read the recriminating 

 criticisms of criticisms, as to the principles 

 of agriculture. Error does not need to be 

 fought, for it falls of its own weight when 

 truth arrives. We are, therefore, I think, 

 to be highly congratulated in this country 

 over the present evident intention of our 

 government and our schools and our inves- 

 tigators to carry the work into the field, 

 whereby the investigator himself becomes 

 more closely the instructor. Middlemen 

 we must have in this work, but let them be 

 as few as possible. I think those investi- 

 gators of farm problems who have had ex- 

 perience will invariably agree with me that 

 they have encountered much more diffi- 

 culty in educating the philosophizing insti- 

 tute or extension worker than they ever 

 experienced in getting a farmer of average 

 intelligence to adopt a particular principle 

 under consideration. 



The Influence of the Laboratory Chem- 

 ist. — I am no pessimist as to the value of 

 present scientific methods. They are a 

 matter of development, but there can be 

 little harm done in calling attention to pos- 

 sible improvements in the methods. The 

 laboratory chemist, because of his first 



