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person of average intelligence who has had the proper instruction ; 

 but the important point is that it was discovered by the application 

 of thoroughly scientific methods. Nilsson's principle is in very 

 general application to-day and is being used to excellent effect in 

 the improvement of Indian corn in the middle West. 



Contrast with this the methods of Mr. Burbank, whose name is 

 familiar to all. It is not that he should not be given the credit of 

 having established new and useful strains of cultivated plants, or 

 of having done some remarkable feats in the way of plant breeding ; 

 but it is that his methods are almost purely intuitive and would 

 die with him, were his own records all that there was to be left 

 behind, a striking difference from the mass of data accumulated 

 by Nilsson. It is the rule of thumb method, picturesque but un- 

 certain, as against the surer but less romantic practices of science. 



The matter of general scientific agriculture opens an immense 

 field in which I can call your attention to a few points only. The 

 scientific care of our forests, for trees may be regarded as a crop 

 and their culture agriculture, is a question to which we in this 

 country are awakening none too soon. Forestry as practised in 

 Europe, demanding as it does expert botanical knowledge, per- 

 haps not by the foresters themselves but by those who direct 

 their labors, has saved what were the fast diminishing wooded 

 areas. There is need of haste with us for similar scientific treat- 

 ment of the problem by men who are not simply woodsmen, but 

 botanists as well. 



The scientific rotation of crops, the use of fertilizers, and the 

 study of the physical and chemical condition of the soil in con- 

 nection with the living plants, involve questions which may mean 

 the success or failure of much of our farming. These questions 

 can only be settled by careful investigations which take into con- 

 sideration the nature of the plants themselves as well as the 

 physical conditions of their environment. Some may say that 

 knowledge along this line has been satisfactorily handed down 

 from father to son, that the farmer knows his business better than 

 does the scientist, but it is a patent fact that this is not so. For 

 instance, many a farm which has been damaged for a long period 

 of years by the over-liming of the soil might have been spared had 



