rogress with the advance of
science.

In such an age it seems fair to ask whether the circle of sciences
which are made contributory to the efficiency of the agriculturist has
been drawn large enough. It is, of course, most important for every
farmer to know the soil and whatever may grow on it and feed on it.
All the new discoveries as to the power of phosphates to increase the
crop or as to the part which protozoa play in the inhibition of
fertility, or the influence of parasites on the enemies of the crops
and the numberless naturalistic details of this type, are certainly
most important. Yet does it not look as if in all the operations which
the worker on the land has to perform everything is carefully
considered by science, and only the chief thing left out, the worker
and his work? He is earnestly advised as to every detail in the order
of nature: he learns by what chemical substances to improve the soil,
what seeds are to be used, and when they are to be planted, what
breeds of animals to raise and how to feed them. But no scientific
interest has thrown light on his own activity in planting the seed and
gathering the harvest, in picking the fruit and caring for the stock.

No doubt, the agent of some trust has recommended to him the newest
machines; but their help still belongs, after all, to the part of
outer nature. They are physical apparatus, and even if the farmer uses
nowadays dynamite to loosen the soil, all this new-fashioned power yet
remains scientific usage of the knowledge of nature. But behind all
this physical and chemical material in which and through which the
farmer and his men are working stand the farmer himself with his
intelligence, and his men themselves with their lack of intelligence.
This human factor, this bundle of ideas and volitions and feelings and
judgments, must ultimately be the centre of the whole process. There
is no machine which can do its best if it is wrongly used, no tool
which can be effective if it is not set to work by an industrious
will. The human mind has to keep in motion that whole great mechanism
of farm life. It is the farmer's foresight and insight which plough
and plant and fill the barns. For a long while the average farmer
thought about nature, too, that he could know all he needed, if he
applied his homemade knowledge. That time has passed, and even he
relies on the meteorology telegram of the scientific bureaus rather
than on the weather rules of his grand