The governmental experiment station ought to establish regular
psychological laboratories, in which the mental processes involved in
the farmer's activity would be examined with the same loyalty to
modern science with which the chemical questions of the soil or the
biological questions of the parasites are furthered. Only such
investigations could give the right cues also to the manufacturers of
farming implements. At present the machines are constructed with the
single purpose of greatest physical usefulness, and the farmer who
uses them has to adjust himself to them. The only human factor which
enters into the construction so far has been a certain desire for
comfort and ease of handling. But as soon as the mental facts involved
are really examined, they ought to become decisive for the details of
the machine. The handle which controls the lever, and every other
part, must be placed so that the will finds the smallest possible
resistance, so that one psychical impulse prepares the way for the
next, and then a maximum of activity can be reached with the smallest
possible psychophysical energy. Such a psychological department of the
agricultural station could be expanded, and study not only the mental
conditions of farming, but examine also the psychological factors
which belong indirectly to the sphere of agricultural work. It may
examine the mental effects which the various products of the farm stir
up in the customers. The feelings and emotions, the volitions and
ideas which are suggested by the vegetables and fruits, the animals
and the flowers, are not without importance for the success in the
market. The psychology of colour and taste, of smell and touch and
form, may be useful knowledge for the scientific farmer, and even his
methods of packing and preparing for the market, of displaying and
advertising, may be greatly improved by contact with applied
psychology.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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