SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
This can be expressed in another way—How can the man on the 
land in Australia, with the aid of Science, learn to solve the following 
questions? ; 
1. In attempting to insure against, or to cope with droughts, is he - 
attempting to accomplish the impossible; or is he only in some districts, 
or in some cases, trying to accomplish the impossible? 
2. Or is he attempting to accomplish the possible (a) in the right 
way; or (b) with good intentions, but with insufficient knowledge or 
equipment, or with inadequate recources? 
From time to time, especially on festive occasions, important per- 
sonages indulge in forecasting the future population of Australia as 
100,000,000, or even 200,000,000, and in descanting upon the necessity 
of filling up the empty spaces of the continent; but, in the reports of their 
speeches in the newspapers, as far as I have seen, without insisting on 
the very necessary stipulation—if and when Australia learns, or is going 
to learn, or has learned, how to cope with drought problems. _ The 
strength of a chain is the strength of the weakest link. The population 
that Australia can support is the population that she can safely carry 
when droughts come. The State is recovering in part from a very 
severe experience of drought. ‘Great ‘activity is being displayed in all 
the States in the way of facilitating the settlement of returned soldier's 
and immigrants on the land. ‘his seems to me to be an oppor- 
tune occasion for asking what, I think, is a proper and a pertinent 
question, because drought-problems are primarily scientific problems, 
and, therefore, the guidance and co-operation of Science is needed ‘for 
their solution. The question I would ask is the two-fold neglected 
question: How is it, seeing that drought-problems are so very important, 
that we have no handbook, or manual, or vade-mecum of Australian 
drought-problems; and if not, why not; and how soon may we look 
forward to having one? We have manuals of the flora, of the fauna, 
of the birds, of the fishes, of the fungi, of the fodder-plants and grasses, 
of the minerals and fossils, and so on; and we know them to be of 
fundamental importance, and to be most helpful and suggestive, in the 
investigation of problems to which they relate. In anticipation of 
the visit of members of the British Association ‘for the Advancement of 
Science in 1914, an admirable series of handbooks, one for each of the 
older States, and one for the Commonwealth as a whole, was published. 
These served not only for the enlightenment of the visitors, but are 
standard works of reference to-day. What I have in view is something 
different from these, and something which is not intended in any way 
to clash with, or supersede the publications of the State Department 
of Agriculture, ‘for example, some of which contain articles bearing 
upon some aspect or other of drought-problems. It is not to be a book 
to teach the man on the land how to grow crops, or how to raise stock, 
primarily, or how to accumulate shekels, or anything of that sort. It 
is to be a book solely for the purpose of setting forth the complemental, 
theoretical side of the practical activities of the man on the land, 
especially in relation to drought-problems, with the object of enabling 
him to understand what it is he needs to learn in order to make the 
most of his resources in providing against disaster; that is, how to live 
and keep in harmony with his somewhat erratic environment; and to 
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