Science and the Land The British Association's discussion on "Planning
the land of Britain," in which no fewer than six sections (geology, zoology botany, geography, economics, and agriculture) took part, was a remarkable example of creating contacts between different expert approaches to a single subject. It seems almost a pity that the meeting did not set up a committee to continue the contacts on a more permanent footing. As it was, the discussion showed strikingly how certain policies— that of establishing national parks, in particular—gain cogency when they are seen to correspond to a public need, not from a single standpoint, but from very many. A dis- cussion on the same day at a joint session of the agriculture and botany section on the pasture problem became to a considerable extent a discussion on the now popular subject of erosion. It seems possible that the pendulum, which has swung too far from pasture to arable, may even swing too far in the other direction. Arable with nothing else has in America and Africa brought mischief. But a combination of arable and forest might escape it, and at the same time be far more productive than grass alone.
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