SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE.

Otaki Mail, 16 July 1923, Page 4

SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE.

NEED FOR APPLICATION AND RESEARCH.

TheTe was not a .very encouraging attendance at the lecture on Thursday night by Mr J. C. Neill, under tha auspices of the W.8.A., which is to be regretted as the subject "The Application of Science to Agriculture" is one that, in a district so dependant on primary industries as this is, should be of interest to every individual. The Mayor, Mr T. Hobson, presided, and briefly introduced Mr Neill, as one who was so interested in research work that he sold his farm and went ( lo the University to take up the study , of agricultural science. He was sorry | there were so few present because agriculture at the present day required all the knowledge possible for its development and increasing the pro- i duct of the land, a s well as improxdng- I 'he quality so as to enable us to com- j pete with foreign countries. Mr Neil) explained '•hat he was not on the statf of the Agricultural Department, but after spending 24 years at the University with the idea of acquiring the scientific training necessary to combat the plant diseases that had made his branch of fanning unprofitable, he had been privileged during the last six months to spend a good deal of time in the Biolodcal Laborstory of the DeDartment of Agriculture,. 4nd it was on "the scientific work that j . --(-36 being clone there that hg wished ! ; 'o speak." I The beet definition of that mivhl abused word science is "exact knowledge." continued the speaker. -Any, I work whatever that adds to our sum 1 total of exact knowledge is scientific j i work and conversely, any work, how- j ever pretentious and authoritative, that doe? not add thereto is not seien- 1 title. Those two words "exact know-j ! ledge" can be applied by laymen and 1 : elect alike as the acid test that infall- ■ ) ibly separates the pure metal from I the dross. There is only one true . metal though it can be worked up into manv shapes, some merely beautiful I as a'work of art, other strictly useful like a golden sovereign (il' such a | thing exists nowadays), but always and everywhere the" only means of I payment 'acceptable at flic door way \ of"the next mystery. The philosoDhiee, the theories and the rationalisations that form the ! 1 drous present to a greater or lesser 1 extent in almost all human work may I be sharply and quickly etched out I I when plunged in 'he acid bath by conI j temporary criticism or if more cun--1 J ningly alloyed will only be gradually I I weathered awav in the processes of I time. Mankind can find few uses for 1 perfectly pure gold, to fit it for his -* purposes it, must be alloyed with a baser metal and so in science men, must, have their theories and philogo8* I phieo to make useable the absolute. I ft knowledge that they possess. The ' I scientific greatness of Charles Darwin ' I j does not rest on tine theory of evolu--1 tion. that was propounded by his own I grandfather and found a place in the ' 1 philosophies of ancient Greece, but on 1 the tremendous accumulation of accur--1 ately recorded facts on which he based j I it. The theory itself being but dross I is altering with the times, but tho I recorded observations are permanent j I additions to the sum of exact know. i ledge. j ■ Now. if science is exact knowledge § applied science is. applied exact know- I § ledge—that is, exact knowledge applied j *f to further the put poses ol mankind. ' "% There is a certain cant phrase curls rent—"pure science" which by those I a 'hat use it, is taken to mean "science H for Its own *ake" or rather "tor the » sake of adding to the stock of exact knowledge in the world." without re- ' ference to its bearing on the everyday uses ol mankind. The ideal i» perhaps lolty enough and can be supported by tlie practical argument that ; exact knowledge of any matter in the 1 univeise. must be ol service to man [ since he is part of that univeise. But £ uulortunatuly an ideal is a very dim- •. 1 cult thing to keep untarnished and ' * too often the "pure scientist'' is en- ' § gaged in polishing and repoHshing i the dross, ol theory and speculation ' 'I rather than in performing the hard I digging necessary to unearth the real j j gold, it he is a clever polisher and !t a he has the salesman's art he may have ins wares accepted by the many for a time but inevitably their destination is the dust heap. And even 3 supposing that lie remains sincere I and is witling to take off his coat and I dig, vet if his find has no value to. 1 his fellows it will u e on the shelf I where he outs it—a possession certain., jf ly but as profitable as 'he spoon in | the magpie's nest. If that is his par- | ticular way ol amusing himself, and I he does it' at his own cost and with--3 out injury to others, there is no par-' s ticular reason why he shouldn't, ' though it seem* rather wasted effort. ' Perusal of modem scientific literature ■ will show to any practical mind how dominant this, -"'pure science''—or a? its, critics say "useless science" idea ! has become even in such a young j' struggling country as our own. Above I all the practical problems of the man : on the land—the man on whose fight with nature all our prosperity restsdemand that every energy of the scientist should be devoted to their solution especially when that scientist" is endowed from the public purse; yet in the publications that record the work of science in New Zealand they find but a minor and almost furtive place. How to prevent the loss of hundreds ol thousands of bushels Of wheat is apparently of tar less scientific moment than the exact number of hairs on the left hindleg of a new species of butterfly. Of the tremendous possibilities that lie in pesearoh on eyery phase of agriculture there can be no doubt— I very few Indeed of its problems have been tackled from the point of view of exact knowledge. Most of our methods in agriculture have changed very j little since the, days of the Romans—j we have been glad to use the know-' ledge gained by workers in other sciences and adopt the iron plow and 1 the benzine engine—but in our own field of growing things we still largely ' follow tradition arid unverified the- S cry, s The field is so vast that the life t work of any one man can but be a s tinv corner of it—a successful method t to 'control any single disease of the j manv that yearly take their toll of all J < our crops would be ample reward for j ' a life term's research. No better in- j J vestment could be made by the court- \ try than to support such workers. , Within the last few years a nucleus 1 organisation lor applied scientific research on the biologic side has been established within the Derailment of t Agriculture tinder the very able and < far sighted leadership of Mr A. H. Cockayne, till lately Government Bio- » I logUt'and now Director of Fields. Mi Cockayne has collected at the Biologi- < cal Laboratory a bunch of keen young ( scientists, each a specialist, and a professional in his separate line and 1 very wisely has encouraged each to I f work along his own chosen path and to publish the results under his own name. As a result a splendid force of mutually helpful, trained enthusiasts { is now 'being directed on to the farm- t er's problems with already quite re- ' markable results. Most farming prol> \ : lems are in a general way world-wide ■ in their incidence, but in each coun- i try some of the factors are different, J so' that results obtained by workers in ) other lands must be interpreted and \ modified to suit our own conditions. J -v 4Jr N'sill th*n explained a series of \

views relating to plant diseases, giving a great deal of interesting information in regard to them. At the conclusion a hearty vote of thanks was moved by Mr P. W. Goldsmith to the lecturer and was carried bv 'acclamation, while a similar tribute was paid to Mr H. Blackbume. who lent the lantern and exhibited the slides.