84 EXPLOITATION OF PLANTS 
typist, and the returns are quick. On the other hand, 
the exercise of the Craft of Research is so restricted, 
and its potentialities are so cramped, that the word 
Investigation is now being employed to indicate the 
purely utilitarian and detective function of such work, 
as distinct from the limitless scope of Research proper. 
Between these two there is an enormous field for 
work, which has scarcely been exploited as yet, where 
any results achieved are inevitably of some value to 
the State, and where there is also a very large chance 
for the open mind to discover lines of inquiry which may 
lead up to scientific conclusions of the first order. This 
field corresponds to the strict definition (now much 
abused) of Applied Science, and its scope may be 
defined as the conduct of strictly scientific research, 
with all its professional criteria of precision and ex- 
haustiveness, but limited in its central subject to material 
of economic importance. 
This field of work is even more fascinating to some 
minds than pure science, being in the closest relation 
with the intellectual problems of science, on the one 
hand, and with the State-service aspects of industry on 
the other. Research in this field has a direct educational 
value for the student, in that it brings him to realise 
the intimate dependence of all research upon the un- 
limited labours of the laboratory, and it throws up in 
vivid relief the enormous lacune which exist in the 
web of our present- knowledge. An example may 
illustrate these points— 
The writer studied the effect of sowing Egyptian 
cotton in successive weeks for nine weeks around the 
usual sowing-date, using every known experimental 
