76 JOUENAL OF THE KOYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



station at Rothamsted, begged Sir John Lawes to tell them the surest 

 way of succeeding in their business, expecting, of course, to receive some 

 learned information as to manures or the rotation of crops. " Get up 

 early," was the curt, but kindly reply. Sir John, however, did not mean 

 to imply that his own life-work was of no avail as a help to the farmer, 

 but that science will only help those who help themselves ; that the 

 farmer must not be like the newspaper writer, who once a year sits 

 down by his bad coal burning in his ill-built grate, to pen an article 

 demanding to know the reason why science has not delivered him from 

 the London fogs. Science, I am afraid, can do little for those who merely 

 want her in order that they themselves may indulge in negligence or 

 sloth : but when those who have proved by their lives that they have 

 acted up to the maxim of getting up early, call for the assistance of 

 science, that assistance should not be denied them. 



Before the recent Commission on Fruit Culture there appeared as 

 witnesses several of the most eminent and successful fruit growers in 

 Great Britain, and it is remarkable that one of the points on which they 

 were most unanimous was the pressing need for scientific help in their 

 work ; such a cry from such men cannot be neglected, and it is the State 

 alone that can adequately satisfy their needs. So little has been done 

 up to the present, so much leeway has to be made up, the problems are 

 so complicated, and the case is so pressing, that, if we are to maintain 

 our position even in our own markets, it is useless to rely on the chance 

 of the work being undertaken by private benevolence. 



The ideal experimental station, indeed, must necessarily be a com- 

 plicated organism, and calls for the combined assistance of several 

 independent sciences. There must be, to- start with, as director and 

 organiser of the experiments, a man who is thoroughly trained in ex- 

 perimental work ; he must, of course, be conversant with the practical 

 conditions of fruit culture, but, unless he is an experimentalist by 

 training and education, he will be of no use as director of an experi- 

 mental station. It cannot be too fully realised that the art of devising ex- 

 periments — the art of putting questions to nature — and, even more so, 

 the art of interpreting the results when once these are obtained, is just as 

 much a matter of training as that of horticulture or of any other business 

 in life. There is nothing more ridiculous than to imagine that, because 

 a man can grow fruit, or because he can teach horticulture, he can, 

 therefore, carry out experiments in the strict sense of the term. A 

 horticulturist is not necessarily a successful experimentalist, any more 

 than a scientific man is necessarily a successful horticulturist. But 

 just as it is necessary that the experimental work of a station should 

 be conducted by a trained experimentalist, so is it necessary that the 

 practical management of the ground should be in the hands of a trained 

 horticulturist. The ground manager should be a thoroughly experienced 

 and practical man, and it should never be possible for erroneous results 

 to be obtained through lack of cultural ability. Still more absurd 

 is it to suppose that experimental work can be carried out by a com- 

 mittee, even when the members of that committee have some knowledge 

 of such work ; a committee may superintend the organisation of a 

 station, and may profitably discuss the results obtained, but investigation 



