THE WoI'.riiN KXTKIMMIINTS : TIII':iK olUKCT AND .MKTJInD. 29 
THE WOBURN EXPERIMENTS. THEIR OBJECT AND 
METHOD. 
By Mr. Spencer U. Pickering, F.R.S. 
[Read March 1 1, isyil.^ 
The title which was suggested to me for a paper to he hrought heforc 
this Society may be taken to imply that I am not expected to deal with 
the results w^iich we have so far obtained at the Woburn Experimental 
Fruit Farm, but rather with the general character of the work and the 
methods adopted in our experiments. The selection of such a title showed 
much wisdom on the part of your secretary, for the methods employed in 
any experimental work of this sort must necessarily be of a somewhat 
novel and unfamiliar character ^to horticulturists, and, while they may 
possibly gain something by being introduced to them, we are sure to gain 
much by hearing their opinions and criticisms on the subject. That these 
criticisms may not be too severe, perhaps I may be allowed to start by 
trying to dispel the time-honoured but now erroneous tenet as to the 
antagonism between practice and theory, and between the practical and 
scientific man. Such an antagonism should certainly never exist, and is, 
indeed, in most cases, a mere fiction, arising from a mistaken notion on 
one side or the other, perhaps on both. If by " practical man " is meant 
merely a man who works without understanding the object of what he 
does, and without drawing conclusions from the results which he obtains, 
or if by " scientific man " is meant one who theorises on a subject of which 
he has no knowledge, then the dictum may be true : but such are not 
the true meanings of either of these designations. The term "horticulturist" 
is certainly a wide one, and may, perhaps, embrace many of the above 
description, but these can hardly be accepted as the embodiment of 
" practice," or representatives of a class of which they are merely acci- 
dental appendages, whilst as to the mere theoriser, he is a being of the 
past ; the days of alchemy and arm-chair philosophers are gone, and no 
scientific man can aspire to be called such, unless he bases his conclusions 
on practical experiments. Indeed, if any man deserves to be called a 
practical man it is the scientific worker of the present day. 
We need only look to the marvellous extent to which science has in 
recent years been directed towards purely practical and commercial ends 
in the most practical nation in Europe — Germany — to recognise the fact 
that the scientific and the practical worker are mutually dependent on each 
other, and that it is only by such united action that the highest success 
can be obtained. Each, of course, has his own special functions to per- 
form, and however sound may be the knowledge of the scientific man, it 
cannot act as a substitute for that technical skill, amounting sometimes 
to a sort of instinct, which can alone be engendered of long experience 
in work on which the wwker's livelihood depends. This fact, I think, 
we have not overlooked in our Woburn Farm. 
If we examine, however, a little more closely the methods adopted by 
the scientific worker and the practical horticulturist, we will find that 
