Scientific Agriculture. 



522 



[December, 1911. 



colonies many men of practical affairs 

 regard science as the fad of amateurs- 

 The scientific man is to them a theorist, 

 whose ideas are not based on the solid 

 facts of experience, but are the bubbles 

 of imagination blown from the lather of 

 books. Science must not be held respon- 

 sible for all that is said and done in the 

 name of science : and even the best of 

 scientific men are but men, with their 

 share of the human liability to err. But 

 science is not theorizing, and the scienti- 

 fic man will produce less theories in a 

 life-time than the self-styled practical 

 man will spin in a year. Huxley, in one 

 of his apt phrases, described science as 

 " trained common sense." The real mean- 

 ing of science is knowledge, and surely 

 no one will deny the practical usefulness 

 of knowledge. Science is, however, 

 something more than ordinary every-day 

 knowledge. It is knowledge obtained by 

 thorough and exhaustive examination 

 of many facts by patient well-plauned 

 accurate experiments, and by unpreju- 

 diced logical thinking, as to the meaning 

 of the facts thus brought to light. Its 

 methods are those of common sense 

 improved by training, discipline, and 

 exercise. Science is not the exclusive 

 property of the professional scientist, 

 but is the common heritage of all men, 

 and is free to every one who will enter 

 it with open mind, industrious work, and 

 honest thought. There are men in all 

 ranks who are born with the scientific 

 cast of mind, and the practical farmer, 

 the man in business, tlie journalist, the 

 legislator, and so on, may be men of 

 scientific method and habit of thought. 

 The more scientific men are in all walks 

 of life, the more practical they are, 

 and the less given to be guided by 

 prejudice and imperfect knowledge. 



The scientific directing of a country's 

 agriculture means then the guiding of 

 that agriculture according to knowledge 

 and the dictates of common sense. 



Now let us see something of what 

 science can do for agriculture. Mr. 

 Fenton, our Government Statist, has 

 shown that in 1897 there were 3,260,312 

 acres of land under tillage in Victoria. 

 Now, it is, as I have already indicated, 

 very much to the interest of every 

 citizen in this community to know what 

 these 3jf million acres of land are pro- 

 ducing. Are they yielding to the 

 country the best in quantity and quality 

 that they might yield ? As to quantity, 

 their average yield of the four staple 

 crops during the last eleven years was 

 as follows : — 



Average Produce per Acre op 

 Principal Crops in Victoria, 1888-1898. 



/"\ ri ft f\rl 



TV/To rn\i 



Wheat. 



Oats. 



Potatoes. 



Hay. 



Bushels. 



Bushels. 



Tons. 



Tons. 



1888 . 



.. 10-81 



22 - 92 



411 



1-41 



1889 . 



.. 7'10 



14-20 



3'04 



•75 



1890 . 



.. 975 



23-87 



333 



1-48 



1891 . 



.. 11-13 



22'26 



379 



1-37 



1892 



10'26 



23-43 



3 "50 



1'39 



1893 . 



'.. 11-04 



25-75 



3-51 



1-44 



1894 . 



... 10-38 



22-62 



354 



1-22 



1895 , 



... 833 



21-14 



3-49 



1-26 



1896 



... 4-01 



11-28 



2-67 



•84 



1897 



... 449 



16-25 



3-37 



108 



1898 



... 6-38 



i6'35 



1-52 



1-14 



Average 



... 8-52 



20-01 



326 



1-22 



In Great Britain the averages during 

 the same period were— Wheat, 29*49 ; 

 Oats, 38'13 ; Potatoes, 5 '85. 



Here we see that our 3| million acres 

 are producing an average of only 8£ 

 bushels of wheat, 20 bushels of oats, 3| 

 tons of potatoes, and 1| tons of hay. In 

 Great Britain they produce three and a 

 half times as much wheat from an acre 

 of land as we do, twice as much oats, 

 and one and four-fifth times as much 

 potatoes. We cannot compare their hay 

 returns with ours, because their hay is 

 from meadow grass, whereas ours is from 

 green oats and wheat. It may be argued 

 that we cannot get as high average 

 results here as in Great Britain, because 

 our average climate is not so favourable. 

 That is a conclusion I would not admit 

 without discussion, Our southern dis- 

 tricts, in some places, have almost ideal 

 agricultural climates ; and our northern 

 districts, though they have drought 

 and fierce summer heats, have their set 

 off in the British Isles in the rigorous 

 winters of the north. 



But, making due allowance for climate, 

 let us ask if our acres are producing 

 all they might do if more science, that 

 is to say, more correct knowledge, were 

 imported into their cultivation. That 

 climate is not responsible, for everything 

 is proved by the fact that we sometimes 

 may see 20 bushels of wheat on one farm 

 and only 7 or 8 on an adjoining farm or 

 10 tons of potatoes per acre grown by 

 one man and only 3 or 4 tons by his 

 neighbour. 



I have here a table giving a few results, 

 culled out of many, obtained from field 

 experiments carried out under my direc- 

 tion from time to time in various dis- 

 tricts of Victoria 



