In no way is the contrast between rural and urban civilisation more marked than in the application of the teachings of modern science to their respective industries. Even the most important mechanical inventions were rather forced upon the farmer by the efficient selling organisation of the city manufacturers than demanded by him as a result of good instruction in farming. On the mammoth wheat farms, where, as the fable ran, the plough that started out one morning returned on the adjoining furrow the following day, mechanical science was indeed called in, but only to perpetrate the greatest soil robbery in agricultural history. Application of science to legitimate agriculture is comparatively new. In my ranching and farming days I well remember how general was the disbelief in its practical value throughout the Middle and Far West. In cowboy terminology, all scientists were classified as "bug-hunters," and farmers generally had no use for the theorist. The non-agricultural community had naturally no higher appreciation of the farmer's calling than he himself displayed. When some Universities first developed agricultural courses, the students who entered for them were nicknamed "aggies," and were not regarded as adding much to the dignity of a seat of higher learning. The Department of Agriculture was looked upon as a source of jobs, graft being the nearest approach to any known agricultural operation. All this is changing fast. The Federal Department of Agriculture is now perhaps the most popular and respected of the world's great administrative institutions. In the Middle West, a newly awakened public opinion has set up an honourable rivalry between such States as Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and Minnesota, in developing the agricultural sides of their Universities and Colleges. None the less, Mr. James J. Hill has recently given it as his opinion that not more than one per cent of the farmers of these regions are working in direct touch with any educational institution. It is probable that this estimate leaves out of account the indirect influence of the vast amount of extension work and itinerant instruction which is embraced in the activities of the Universities and Colleges. I fear it cannot be denied that in the application of the natural sciences to the practical, and of economic science to the business of farming, the country folk are decades behind their urban fellow-citizens. And again I say the disparity is to be attributed to the difference in their respective degrees of organisation for business purposes.