Amongst other interesting papers read on Thursday before the different
sections of the British Association, we may note that of Sir Horace Plunkett on "Science and the Problem of Rural Life." That problem, he observed, had been forced to the very forefront of practical polities by physical degeneracy and unemployment in our towns, and he held that there was a marked disparity between the attention given to urban and rural affairs by those engaged in the application of science to the material and social advancement of mankind. But though the provision for research in agriculture left much to seek, working farmers were still very far from utilising the know- ledge already placed at their disposal by science, and they were even more backward in their business than in their technical methods. He strongly advocated agricultural co-operation, and insisted on the importance of stimulating economic thought in the country in order to give the rural popula- tion an intelligent interest in its own problems.
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