Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/90

86 There are few illustrations of the power of national cooperation more striking than those shown in the achievements of the Department of Agriculture. I have no time to touch on the varied branches of agricultural research, the study of the chemistry of foods and soils, the practise of irrigation, the fight against adulterations, the fight against noxious insects, and all the other channels of agricultural art and practise. I can only commend the skill and the zeal with which all these lines of effort have been followed.

The art of agriculture is the application of all the sciences. Yet 'agricultural education,' writes a correspondent, 'has not yet reached the dignity of other forms of technical education.'

"The endowment of the science of agricultural research in the United States is greater than in any other country. The chief fault to be found is in striving too rapidly for practical applications and in not giving time enough for the fundamental research on which these applications must rest. The proportion of applied agricultural science in agriculture is too great in this country. While we do not need fewer workers in applied agricultural science, we do need more workers who would devote themselves to fundamental research."

Two branches of applied science not specifically noticed in our scheme of classification seem to me to demand a word of notice. One is selective breeding of plants and animals; the other, the artificial hatching of fishes. By the crossing of animals or plants not closely related, a great range of variety appears in the progeny. Some of these may have one or more of the desirable qualities of either parent. By selection of those possessing such qualities a new race may be formed in a few generations. The practical value of the results of such experiments can not be over-estimated. Although by no means a modern process, the art of selective breeding is still in its infancy. Its practise promises to take a leading place among the economically valuable applications of science. At the same time, the formation of species of organisms under the hand of man throws constant floods of light on the great questions of heredity, variation and selection in nature, the problem of the origin of species.

In this connection I may refer to artificial hatching and acclimatization of fishes, the work of the United States Bureau of Fisheries and of the fish commissions of the different states. There are many species of fish, notably those of the salmon family, in which the eggs can be taken and fertilized by artificial processes. These eggs can be hatched in protected waters so that the young will escape many of the vicissitudes of the brook and river, and a thousand young fishes can be sent forth where only a dozen grew before.

In the vast field of medicine I can only indicate in a few words