SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1884. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



The reports of agricultural experiment-sta- 

 tions, experimental farms, and similar institu- 

 tions, form a class of literature which is rapidly 

 increasing in volume, and which, while it con- 

 tains very much that is (at least from a scien- 

 tific stand-point) simply trash, also contains 

 much that is of scientific value. In calling 

 attention to a very prevalent fault of such 

 publications, we would not be understood as 

 calling in question their usefulness for the pur- 

 poses for which they are intended, and still 

 less as lacking in appreciation of the valuable 

 scientific results which many of them contain 

 — usually, it must be confessed, rather spar- 

 ingly. The fault to which we refer is not one 

 of matter, but of form. It is the lack of any 

 intelligent discussion of the results of experi- 

 ments ; and it makes itself felt most severely, 

 precisely in the cases in which those results 

 are most important scientifically. 



What would be thought of ail astronomer, 

 who, after observing an eclipse, or a transit of 

 Venus, should present as his report, simply a 

 memorandum of the observations taken, with- 

 out reducing or discussing them? Yet sub- 

 stantially this is what we find in very man}* 

 agricultural reports. The experiments have 

 been planned with more or less intelligence and 

 care, and executed with more or less of pains- 

 taking accuracy, according to circumstances ; 

 but there the experimenter has stopped, appar- 

 ently forgetting or ignoring that his work is 

 only half done. The experiment planned and 

 executed, there still remains the task of com- 

 bining and testing the results, so as to detect 

 their fallacies, and bring out what they reall}* 

 teach ; in other words, the task of discussion. 



That the task of discussion is so often neg- 



No. 87. — 1884. 



lected may be due to several causes. Often 

 it is apparent from the tone of the report, that 

 the author has feared the reproach of being a 

 'theorist,' and has rather ostentatiously con- 

 fined himself to a bare statement of facts ob- 

 served. Vague and undisciplined theorizing, 

 and hasty generalizations, are, of course, to be 

 avoided ; but these are something very differ- 

 ent from sober study and discussion. Facts 

 are good, especially when they teach princi- 

 ples ; but he who will have nothing but facts 

 confines himself to the husks of investigation. 

 In other cases one can scarcely avoid the im- 

 pression that the writer has been too indolent 

 to discuss his results ; and in some instances 

 the suspicion is even suggested that he has 

 been overcome by their complexit}' or unex- 

 pectedness. 



But, from whatever cause originating, the 

 prevailing fashion of presenting experimental 

 work is to be reprobated. An author has no 

 right to require that his readers make that 

 critical comparison of results which he is too 

 indolent or too incompetent to undertake him- 

 self; nor to thrust upon the unscientific public, 

 to whom such reports as we are speaking of are 

 mainly addressed, crude and superficial conclu- 

 sions as the results of scientific investigations. 

 Indeed, it is to this latter class that the practice 

 is likely to prove most pernicious. The trained 

 scientific man can readily detect the absence 

 of critical discussion, even though he may not 

 feel called upon to supply the lack ; but the 

 unscientific reader, who has had no training 

 of this sort, is very likely to accept whatever 

 conclusions his author draws, however inade- 

 quate, as expressing the sum of truth upon 

 that subject, or to stand bewildered before a 

 mass of details, with no clear idea of what 

 they prove. 



We submit that in neither case is the experi- 

 menter fulfilling his duty to his constituents. 



