Wizards and Devotees: On the Mendelian Theory of Inheritance and the Professionalization of Agricultural Science in Great Britain and the United States,1880–1930

Mowery David C. Rosenberg Nathan , Technology and the pursuit of economic growth (Cambridge, 1989). Of course, philanthropic foundations have also played a major role in this transformation of the scientific enterprise. They, however, were much more explicitly concerned with science as agent of social reform. For an introduction to the literature on philanthropic foundations and science, see Kohler Robert E. , Partners in science: Foundations and natural scientists, 1900–1945 (Chicago, 1991).

For a review of the literature on the “amateur”, in the United States, see Reingold Nathan , “Definitions and speculations: The professionalization of science in America in the nineteenth century”, in Oleson Alexandra Brown Sanford C. (eds), The pursuit of knowledge in the early American republic (Baltimore, 1976), 33–69; about the “amateur”, in Great Britain, see Berman Morris , “Hegemony and the gentleman amateur in British science”, Journal of social history, viii (1975), 30–50. On the organization of science in the United States during the period that concerns us here, see Dupree A. Hunter , Science in the federal government (Cambridge, Mass., 1957); on Great Britain, see Alter Peter , The reluctant patron: Science and the state in Britain, 1850–1920 (Oxford, 1987).

See for example, Kevles Daniel J. , The physicists: The history of a scientific community in modern America (Cambridge, Mass., 1971) on the relationship between academic scientific research and technological developments, both civil and military; or Thackray Arnold , Chemistry in America, 1876–1976 (Dordrecht, 1985) for a statistical survey of American chemists, academic and industrial; Layton Edwin , The revolt of the engineers: Social responsibility and the American engineering profession (Cleveland, 1972) on the emergence of a self-conscious engineering profession; and Hounshell David A. Smith John K. , Science and corporate strategy: Du Pont R & D, 1902–1980 (Cambridge, 1988) on science and technology within the confines of an industrial corporation.

See any of the various papers on British science written over the past twenty years by MacLeod Roy MacLeod Kay ; and also Cardwell Donald S. L. , The organization of science in England (London, 1972). Alter's Reluctant patron (ref. 2) is based largely on the work of these three authors. Note, however, that British expenditures on military research and development were quite considerable, even from the late nineteenth century onward, and that they are consistently ignored by most historians (including the MacLeods and Cardwell); see Edgerton David E. H. , “Liberal militarism and the British state”, New Left review, clxxxv (1991), 138–69.

Edgerton David E. H. Horrocks Sally M. , “British industrial research and development before 1945”, Economic history review, xlvii (1994), 213–38.

See Rossiter Margaret , The emergence of agricultural science: Justus Liebig and the Americans, 1840–1880 (New Haven, 1975); Tobey Ronald C. , Saving the prairies: The life cycle of the founding school of American plant ecology, 1895–1955 (Berkeley, 1981); Kloppenburg Jack R. , First the seed: The political economy of plant biotechnology, 1492–2000 (Cambridge, 1988); and Fitzgerald Deborah , The business of breeding: Hybrid corn in Illinois, 1890–1940 (Ithaca, 1990).

The only comprehensive study of British agricultural science is Russell E. John , A history of agricultural science in Great Britain, 1620–1954 (London, 1966).

See Coleman Donald C. , “Gentlemen and players”, Economic history review, xxvi (1973), 92–116; cf. Edgerton David E. H. , “Science and technology in British business history”, Business history, xxix (1987), 84–103.

In “Definitions” (ref. 2), Nathan Reingold has dated the professionalization of scientific work in the United States much earlier (1830–70) than the period considered here. However, it seems to me that the Progressive Era, with all the emphasis on “experts” and their role in expediting social reform, was the crucially important period; in fact, see Reingold's preface to the reissue of “Definitions”, in his Science, American style (New Brunswick, 1991), 24.

The quote is from Biffen Rowland H. , “Mendel's laws of inheritance and wheat breeding”, Journal of agricultural science, i (1905), 4–48, p. 6.

On the institutionalization of genetic research in the United States and Great Britain, see Kimmelman Barbara A. , “A Progressive Era discipline: Genetics and American agricultural colleges and experiment stations, 1890–1920”, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1987; Olby Robert C. , “The Development Commission and state support for applied biology in Edwardian Britain”, Annals of science, xlviii (1991), 509–26; Palladino Paolo , “The politics of agricultural research: Plant breeding in Britain, 1910–1940”, Minerva, xxviii (1990), 446–8, and “Between craft and science: Plant breeding, Mendelian genetics and British universities, 1900–1920”, Technology and culture, xxxiv (1993), 300–23.

For a quite comprehensive and critical review of current ideas about professionalization, see Abbott Andrew , The system of professions: An essay on the division of expert labour (Chicago, 1988).

For a brief biographical sketch of Burbank's life and work, see Kellogg Vernon , “Luther Burbank”, in Dictionary of American biography , iii, 265–70; for an extended account, from which is drawn most of the material for the present discussion, see Dreyer Peter , A gardener touched with genius (New York, 1975).

Archives of the University of California, Berkeley, CR6, Walter L. Howard Collection: Jones Donald F. , “Life and work of Luther Burbank”, 36.

See Burbank's descriptive catalogues, New creations, which appeared every year between 1893 and 1901.

Dreyer , op. cit. (ref. 13), 133–4.

Bernard as quoted in Burbank Luther , “How to produce new trees, fruits and flowers”, Proceedings of the American Pomological Society, xxiv (1895), 59–66, p. 65.

Burbank quoted in Howard Walter L. , “Luther Burbank: A victim of hero worship”, Chronica botanica, ix (1945), 300–506, p. 323.

Harwood W. S. , New creations in plant life: An authoritative account of the life and work of Luther Burbank (London, 1905), 335–51. According to Liberty Hyde Bailey's report on his meeting with Burbank, beside the deep influence of Darwin's writings, Burbank's work was also strongly influenced by Asa Gray's Lessons in botany and vegetable physiology (1868) and Field, forest and garden botany (1868); see Bailey Liberty H. , “A maker of new fruits and flowers”, World's work, ii (1901), 1209–14. On Gray's theistic interpretation of the theory of evolution by natural selection, see Bowler Peter J. , The eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian evolution theories in the decades around 1900 (Baltimore, 1983), 51–52.

Harwood , op. cit. (ref. 19), 351. For a contemporary account of theories about heredity and evolution that closely resembled those of Burbank, see Kellogg Vernon L. , Darwinism today (New York, 1907), 187–326; this discussion also includes a brief reference to Burbank's work. For an introduction to American views about nature in late nineteenth-century America, see Lear T. Jackson , No place of grace: Antimodernism and the transformation of American culture, 1880–1920 (New York, 1981).

See Burbank Luther , “Fundamental principles of plant breeding”, The American florist, xix (1902), 341–3; and “Heredity”, ibid., xxiv (1905), 149–50. Burbank often argued that the “environment” could act to change the potentialities of any inherited constitution. Yet, the meaning of this seeming endorsement of the theory of acquired characters was unclear, as he never argued that a species could be changed by simply altering its environment. Instead he constantly pressed upon his audiences the importance of inter-breeding; in fact, in the mid-1910s, perhaps in response to criticism of his ideas about heredity, he claimed that this interbreeding was “ten thousand times more important and effective” than any environmental modification for the evolution of new species. See Archives of the University of California, Berkeley, CR6, Walter L. Howard Collection: Folder no. 2: Burbank Luther , “Evolution and variation, with the fundamental significance of sex” (undated, c. 1916).

Burbank , “Fundamental principles” (ref. 21), 342.

Burbank , ibid., 341.

Burbank , ibid., 342.

See M. A. Carleton's report to the Bureau of Plant Industry (United States Department of Agriculture) on experimental stations in Europe, as cited in Rodgers Andrew D. , Liberty Hyde Bailey: A story of American plant sciences (Princeton, 1949), 154–5. See also “America's wrong notion of Luther Burbank's achievement”, Current literature, xliii (1907), 97–98; and Archives of the University of California, Berkeley, CR6, Walter L. Howard Collection: Folder no. 18: Howard , “Opinions of Luther Burbank by horticulturists, agronomists and botanists”, 1935.

Burbank Luther , “Another mode of species formation”, Popular science monthly, lxxv (1909), 264–6, p. 264; “Fundamental principles”, op. cit. (ref. 21), 342; and also Dreyer , op. cit. (ref. 13), 172–3.

Dreyer , op. cit. (ref. 13), 290.

See Kimmelman Barbara A. , “The American Breeders' Association: Genetics and eugenics in an agricultural context, 1903–13”, Social studies of science, xiii (1983), 163–204.

Gardener's chronicle , 1896, ii, 190.

See Pauly Philip J. , Controlling life: Jacques Loeb and the engineering ideal in biology (Oxford, 1987), especially p. 106; I am grateful to Michael Dietrich for pointing out this connection between Loeb and Burbank.

On De Vries's visit see his “A visit to Luther Burbank”, Popular science monthly, lxvii (1905), 329–47; and “Luther Burbank's ideas of scientific horticulture”, Century, lxxiii (1907), 674–81; on Tschermak's see v. Rüker Karl v. Tschermak Erich , Landwirtschaftliche Studien in Nordamerika mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Pflanzenzchtung (Berlin, 1910), 83–95 and passim.

See Allen Garland E. , “Hugo de Vries and the reception of the ‘Mutation Theory’”, Journal of the history of biology, ii (1969), 55–87.

For Burbank's views on mutation see Burbank , “Species formation” (ref. 26); see also Archives of the University of California, Berkeley, CR6, Howard Walter L. Collection: Folder J-L: Howard to Jones Donald F. , 3 June 1938.

See Burbank , “New trees fruits and flowers” (ref. 17).

For biographical details on Kellogg, see McClung Charles E. , “Vernon Kellogg, 1867–1937”, Biographical memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, xx (1939), 245–57; on Jordan , see Dictionary of scientific biography, vii, 169–70.

See Jordan David S. Kellogg Vernon , The scientific aspects of Luther Burbank's work (San Francisco, 1909).

Kingsland Sharon , “The battling botanist: Daniel Tremblay MacDougal, mutation theory, and the rise of experimental evolutionary biology in America, 1900–1912”, Isis, lxxxii (1991), 479–509, p. 499.

On American geneticists' and agricultural botanists' early views of the significance of the Mendelian theory of heredity for plant breeding, see Fitzgerald , op. cit. (ref. 6), 9–42.

Burbank , “Species formation” (ref. 26), 265.

On the “genteel tradition” and its significance for American science, see Tobey , op. cit. (ref. 6), 32–35.

Burbank , New creations (ref. 15), 1894, 2.

Burbank's belief that new “fixed” varieties were essentially new species is first evident in his “Plant-breeding”, Garden and forest, viii (1895), 349; but this idea was presented most explicitly in “Species formation” (ref. 26).

Howard , op. cit. (ref. 18), 403.

Dreyer , op. cit. (ref. 13), 133 and 194.

See Howard , op. cit. (ref. 18), 433; and Archives of the University of California, Berkeley, CR6, Walter L. Howard Collection: Uncatalogued items: Carlton R. Ball to Sterling R.E. , 12 May 1926, p. 9.

Reingold , op. cit. (ref. 9), 190–223.

Rosenberg Charles E. , No other gods: On science and American social thought (Baltimore, 1976), 173–84.

Reingold , op. cit. (ref. 9), 197–204.

Howard , op. cit. (ref. 18), 404.

Dreyer , op. cit. (ref. 13), 202–3.

“Luther Burbank”, Rural New Yorker , 12 May 1890, p. 1; and Bailey , op. cit. (ref. 19) (see also Bailey's Plant breeding (New York, 1913), 238–46). On World's works and “Progressivism”, see Danbom Daniel B. , The resisted revolution: Urban America, and the industrialization of agriculture, 1900–1930 (Ames, 1979), 43.

Wickson Eugene J. , Luther Burbank: Man, methods and achievements (San Francisco, 1902).

Kimmelman , op. cit. (ref. 11), 300–2; and Archives of the University of California, Berkeley, CR6, Howard Walter L. Collection: Folder 4: Scrapbook Burbank , 1909.

Wing J. E. , “A chat about agricultural colleges”, Breeders' gazette , 2 Nov. 1904. See also Archives of the University of California, Berkeley, CR6, Howard Walter L. Collection: Folder 27: Kraus E. J. to Howard, 23 May 1934; Kraus, a professor of botany at the University of Chicago, complained that Burbank's over-blown reputation was created by “state universities, as much as by the press, to promote the good done for farmers, new fads and plans for educational systems, [and] scientific discoveries of the bunkiest sort”.

Bailey , op. cit. (ref. 19), 1209; see also Dreyer , op. cit. (ref. 13), 163–7.

De Vries , op. cit. (ref. 31), 335.

Archives of the University of California, Davis, D37, Wickson Eugene J. Collection: H. Garman to Wickson, 27 May 1905; Howard , op. cit. (ref. 18), 403; and Dreyer , op. cit. (ref. 13), 177.

On the roots of geneticists' antipathy toward Burbank in a lack of ecological perspective, see the various comments in Howard , op. cit. (ref. 25).

Howard , op. cit. (ref. 18), 354; see Howard , op. cit. (ref. 25). More generally, see Rosenberg , op. cit. (ref. 47), 173–84 and 207.

Archives of the University of California, Berkeley, CR6, Walter L. Howard Collection: Folder 4: Burbank Scrapbook, 1909.

Ibid. ; and Jones , op. cit. (ref. 14), 35–36. On other contemporary work by the Carnegie Institution of Washington to develop the scientific foundations of programs to advance the agricultural economy of the Southwest, see Kingsland Sharon , “An elusive science: Ecological enterprise in the Southwestern United States”, in Shortland Michael (ed.), Science and nature (Oxford, 1993), 151–79.

On Jones, Shull and hybrid corn, see Paul Diane B. Kimmelman Barbara A. , “Mendel in America: Theory and practice, 1900–1919”, in Benson Keith (eds), The American development of biology (Philadelphia, 1988), 281–310. For the comments of other critics of Burbank's work, see Archives of the University of California, Davis, D37, Wickson Eugene J. Collection: Letters to Wickson from J. Craig, 11 May 1905; Stuart W. , 17 May 1905; and Brackett G. B. , 17 May 1905.

On the relationship between Shull and Burbank, see Glass Bentley , “The strange encounter of Luther Burbank and George Harrison Shull”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, cxxiv (1980), 133–53. See also Archives of the American Philosophical Society, Shull George H. Papers: “Notes on a European tour undertaken by Shull George H. under the direction of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, for the purpose of visiting the more important plant breeders and students of heredity, August-December, 1908”, 28.

Babcock Ernest Clausen Roy , Genetics in relation to agriculture (New York, 1918), 297.

Jones , op. cit. (ref. 14), 74–92.

Fitzgerald , op. cit. (ref. 6), 69.

On Castle's response to Burbank's paper, “Species formation” (op. cit. (ref. 26)), see Dreyer , op. cit. (ref. 13), 225. See also Thompson J. , “Mr. Burbank's work”, The nation, lxxxviii (1906), 602–3; responding to a review of Jordan's and Kellogg's Scientific aspects of Luther Burbank's work (op. cit. (ref. 36)) Thompson complained that “the fact is, as Messers. Jordan and Kellogg so well know, there is no ‘science’ or ‘scientific aspect’ to Mr. Burbank's work” (p. 602).

See Archives of the University of California, Berkeley, CR6, Howard Walter L. Collection: Folder 20: Ball Carlton R. to Howard, 24 Feb. 1938.

Most of this biographical information was obtained from Lancaster Hugh , “Edwin Sloper Beaven, 1857–1941”, Journal of the Institute of Brewing, xlviii (1942), 31–33; and from personal correspondence with Beaven's grand-daughter, Ms Susan Oldham of Warminster.

See Michael F. Thompson L. , English landed society in the nineteenth century (London, 1963).

Archives of Guinness Brewing in St James's Gate (Dublin): Uncatalogued collection.

For biographical information on Kürnicke , see Ullrich H. , “Friedrich August Kürnicke (1828–1908)”, in Neue Deutsche Biographie (Berlin, 1979), xii, 392. Eventually, Beaven translated Kürnicke's famous treatise on the cultivation of cereal, Handbuch des Getreidbaues (1885). At the time of his correspondence with Beaven, Hansen was professor of botany in the agricultural college at Lyngby; see Lange A. , “Carl Hansen, (1848–1903)”, in Dansk Biografisk Leksikon (Copenhagen, 1980), v, 573.

Warminster Historical Society, E. S. Beaven Collection: “Correspondence relating to experiments carried out in respect of potatoes and onions, 1892–95”. Beaven received a great number of request from the United States for reprints of these reports.

For biographical information on Munro, see Beaven Edwin S. , “John M. H. Munro, 1856–1937”, Nature, cxxxix (1937), 60.

For the history of Rothamsted, see Russell , op. cit. (ref. 7), 143–75.

Munro John H. M. Beaven Edwin S. , “Manurial conditions affecting the malting quality of barley”, Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, lviii (1898), 65–114; and Beaven Edwin S. , “Various conditions affecting the malting quality of barley”, Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, lxi (1900), 185–251.

Rothamsted Experiment Station, Papers and Correspondence of Sir John Lawes and Sir Henry Gilbert, 1897–1901: vol. xiii: Gilbert to Beaven Edwin S. , 20 Oct. 1898.

For biographical information on Hunter, see Bell George D. H. , “Herbert Hunter, 1882–1959”, Nature, clxxxiii (1959), 1016–17; on McMullen , “Alan McMullen, 1872–1940”, Journal of the Institute of Brewing, xlvi (1940), 424–5; on Browne, see Millar J. H. , “Horace Tabberer Browne, 1848–1925”, Journal of the Institute of Brewing, xxxi (1925), 229–33; and on Gossett, see McMullen L. Pearson E. S. , “William Sealy Gossett, 1876–1937”, in Pearson E. S. Kendall M. G. (eds), Studies in the history of statistics and probability (London, 1970), 355–403.

For biographical details on Bateson see Dictionary of scientific biography , i, 505–6; on Biffen, see Engledow Frank L. , “Rowland Harry Biffen”, Obituary notices of the Fellows of the Royal Society, vii (1950–51), 9–25. See also Palladino , op. cit. (ref. 11).

Beaven Edwin S. , Barley: Fifty years of observations (London, 1947), 108–18.

For biographical information on Wood , see “Thomas Barlowe Wood, 1869–1929”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, series B, cviii (1931), pp. i–iii; and also Russell , op. cit. (ref. 7), 198–214.

Beaven , op. cit. (ref. 80).

Ibid. , 3–6 and 237–43. See also Archives of the University of Reading, John Percival Collection: Beaven to John Percival, 20 May 1922.

Beaven , op. cit. (ref. 80), 44–59; and Beaven Edwin S. , “Pedigree seed corn”, Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, lxx (1909), 119–39. For biographical details on Johannsen, see Dictionary of scientific biography, vii, 113–15. On the contested meaning of “pure lines”, see Sapp Jan , “The struggle for authority in the field of heredity, 1900–1932: New perspectives on the rise of genetics”, Journal of the history of biology, xvi (1983), 311–42.

British Library Manuscripts Collection, Alfred R. Wallace Papers: Item 46438: Beaven to Wallace A.R. , 4 Feb. 1911. On Darwinism and neo-Lamarckism at the end of the nineteenth century, see Bowler , op. cit. (ref. 19), 59–106.

Beaven , op. cit. (ref. 80), 5.

See for example Munro John M. H. Beaven Edwin S. , “Various conditions affecting the malting quality of barley”, Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, xi (1900), 185–251, espec. pp. 187–8.

Beaven , op. cit. (ref. 80), 3–6.

Ibid., 246.

Russell , op. cit. (ref. 7), 262.

Archives of the Institute of Agricultural History (Reading), Guinness Collection: Mann Albert R. , “Report of trip to England and other European countries for special barley investigations, Summer 1908”, 11–20.

Rothamsted Experiment Station, Papers and Correspondence of Sir John Lawes and Sir Henry Gilbert, 1897–1901: vol. xiii: Edwin S. Beaven to Gilbert, 24 Oct. 1898.

Beaven , op. cit. (ref. 80), p. ix.

Archives of the Institute of Agricultural History (Reading), Guinness Collection: Guinness Research Station: Edwin S. Beaven to Hon. Henry Hope, M.P., 6 Feb. 1914; see also Edwin S. Beaven to Rowland Biffen, 26 Nov. 1913. The scheme established the Plant Breeding Institute at the University of Cambridge as the centre for the national trade in seed corn, and the various agricultural colleges and agricultural organizing societies across the nation as the distribution outlets. Interestingly, none of the major seed companies was involved in the planning of this scheme.

On the functions of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany with regard to the seed trade, see Palladino , “Politics of research” (ref. 11), 452–3.

Beaven , op. cit. (ref. 80), p. xi.

Beaven Edwin S. , “Relation of science to Sunday School teaching”, mss. in the possession of Ms Susan Oldham, undated (c. 1884). On science and religion in Victorian Great Britain, see Turner Frank M. , “The Victorian conflict between science and religion: A professional dimension”, Isis, lxix (1978), 356–76.

Beaven , op. cit. (ref. 97), 20–21.

See Norton Bernard , “Biology and philosophy: The methodological foundations of biometry”, Journal of the history of biology, viii (1975), 85–93; and Coleman William , “Bateson and chromosomes: Conservative thought in science”, Centaurus, xv (1970), 228–314.

Kargon Robert H. , Science in Victorian Manchester: Enterprise and expertise (Manchester, 1977), 34–35 and 78.

See Armstrong as quoted in “Horace Brown Memorial Lecture”, Journal of the Institute of Brewing, xxxvii (1931), 21–24, p. 23.

“Dr. Beaven's work honoured”, The Warminster journal, 1 July 1930.

Warminster Historical Society, Edwin S. Beaven Papers: “Correspondence relating to obtaining samples of barley for trials from around the world: Note on proposed collection of specimens of barleys grown in foreign countries”, no date (prob. 1901); and Beaven Edwin S. , “A register for seed corn”, The Times (London), 2 May 1910, 10a.

See Beaven's remarks on pp. 64–68, following Dampier William C. , “Agricultural research and the work of the Agricultural Research Council”, Journal of the Farmers' Club, 1938, 55–61. Beaven's philosophy, which was widely shared among British scientists of the period, was eventually embedded in the “Haldane” principle governing the organization of British government-funded research; see Alter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 255.

British Library Manuscripts Collection, Alfred Wallace R. Papers: Item 46438: Edwin Beaven S. to Wallace, 4 Feb. 1911.

Dedication to Beaven in Hall A. D. , A pilgrimage of British farming, 1910–1912 (London, 1913); see also Henry E. Armstrong's remarks following Beaven's Horace Brown Memorial Lecture, Journal of the Institute of Brewing , xxxvii (1931), 21–24. Leon Bollee was a French pioneer in automotive and air transportation, who championed the role of the independent innovator; see his obituary in The Times (London), 17 Dec. 1913, 11d.

Beaven , op. cit. (ref. 80), p. xi.

Remarks by E. J. Butler in the discussion following Wetham , op. cit. (ref. 104), 72.

“Honorary degrees for agriculturists”, Journal of the Ministry of Agriculture, xxix (1922–23), 385–7. Beaven was also an external examiner for students of biometry at the University of London; some attempts were made from the 1920s onward to elect him to the Royal Society, but they may have been resisted by his rival in matters of statistical analysis, Ronald Fisher. See Boxer C. , R. A. Fisher: The life of a scientist (New York, 1978), 150; Henry E. Armstrong's remarks in “Horace Brown Memorial Lecture”, op. cit. (ref. 101); and also Archives of the Institute of Agricultural History (Reading), Guinness Collection: William Gossett: Statistical: 1920–24: Edwin S. Beaven to Gossett, 21 Nov. 1920.

Beaven , op. cit. (ref. 80), 249.

Archives of the John Innes Institute (Norwich), Bateson Correspondence: Bateson to William Hardy, 7 July 1922.

The Times (London), 20 Nov. 1941, 7; see also Hunter Herbert , “Edwin Sloper Beaven, 1857–1941”, Nature, cxlviii (1941), 776–7; and Thomson J. A. , “Science and the farmer”, Journal of the Board of Agriculture, 1922–23, 217–23.

“The Winnipeg meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science”, Popular science monthly, lxxv (1909), 411–14, p. 411.

Dangerfield George , The strange death of liberal England (New York, 1935).

See Alter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 1–12.

Berman , op. cit. (ref. 2).

Gavin William , Ninety years of family farming (London, 1967).

See Hull Andrew , “Knowledge is power? A new view of some aspects of the relations of science and politics in Edwardian Britain”, M.Sc. dissertation, University of Manchester, 1989.

See for example MacKenzie Donald , “Eugenics in Britain”, Social studies of science, vi (1976), 499–532.

Alter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 161–9 and 183–4. See also Jacyna Stephen L. , “Science and social order in the thought of A. J. Balfour”, Isis, lxxi (1980), 11–34; and Sturdy Steven W. , “Biology as social order: John Scott Haldane and physiological regulation”, The British journal for the history of science, xxi (1988), 315–40 (Sturdy considers in some considerable detail the idealist philosophy shared by the brothers John and Robert Haldane).

Alter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 97; and Searle G. R. , The quest for national efficiency: A study in British politics and political thought, 1899–1914 (Berkeley, 1971).

Alter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 161–2; and Turner Frank M. , “Public science in Britain, 1880–1919”, Isis, lxxi (1980), 589–608. For a more general and pithy assessment, see Lewis Namier as quoted in Moore Barrington , The origins of dictatorship and democracy (Boston, 1966), 489.

Alter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 221. On the attitudes of the aristocracy toward business, see Wiener Martin J. , English culture and the decline of the industrial spirit, 1850–1980 (Cambridge, 1981); see also Arnold Thackray on the motives of scientific interest among the business élite of Manchester, in “Natural knowledge in cultural context: The Manchester model”, American historical review, lxxix (1974), 672–709.

See “Rupert E. C. L. Guinness (Lord Iveagh) (1874–1967)”, Dictionary of national biography, 1961–1970 , 463–6; and “Walter Guinness (Lord Moyne) (1880–1944)”, Dictionary of national biography, 1941–1950, 332–4.

Alter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 40.

See Palladino , “Craft and science” (ref. 11). Whether his acceptance of academic values extended outside the university to the laboratories of Huntley and Palmer itself, or those of the Guinness Brewing company, is however open to question. Henry Armstrong's relative freedom to conduct his pioneering work in biochemistry in the laboratories of Huntley and Palmer, or William Gosset's in the Guinness Brewing company, needs to be evaluated against that of many more, less famous scientists (for biographical details on Armstrong, see Keeble F. , “Henry Armstrong, 1848–1937”, Obituary notices of the Fellows of the Royal Society of London, iii (1939–41), 229–45). Interesting asymmetries are evident, for example, in the policies for scientific research of ICI: Academic scientists supported by ICI were granted relatively more freedom than those employed directly by the company, and even among the latter there was considerable differentiation (see Reader W. J. , Imperial chemical industries: A history (Oxford, 1970)).

Palladino , “Politics of agricultural research” (ref. 11); see also Alter , op. cit. (ref. 3), 244 and the various biographical sketches in Russell, op. cit. (ref. 7). See also Lowe R. , “The expansion of higher education in England”, in Jarausch K. H. (ed.), The transformation of higher learning, 1860–1930: Expansion, diversification, social opening and professionalization in England, Germany, Russia and the United States (Chicago, 1983), 37–56.

Archives of the Rockefeller Foundation, International Education Board: Subseries 1: Box 24: Folder 239: Hutchinson Claude B. Mann Albert R. , “Higher education in agriculture on Europe”, Sept. 1927, 40.

Richards Stuart , “Science, agriculture and the universities”, mss. (available from Stuart Richards at Wye College). The existence of a wide network of such more technical institutions, according to Lowe, allowed British universities to maintain their traditional roles unchanged, even in the face of greater demands for more practically useful education; see “Expansion of higher education in England” (ref. 127).

See Bell George D. H. , “The journal of agricultural science, 1905–1980: A historical record”, Journal of agricultural science, xliv (1980), 1–30, p. 2.

Olby Robert C. , “Scientists and bureaucrats in the establishment of the John Innes Horticultural Institution under William Bateson”, Annals of science, xlvi (1989), 497–510.

Archives of the Scottish Record Office, Agriculture and Fisheries: 60/7: “Establishment of a station for testing and registering varieties of farm crops”, 20 Nov. 1918.

Wardlaw C. W. , “Montagu Drummond, 1881–1965”, Nature, ccv (1965), 1262.

This situation, according to Perkin Harold (“The pattern of social transformation in England”, in Jarausch , op. cit. (ref. 127), 207–18) began to change between the two world wars, as the composition of the academic class began to change and include more representatives from the professional and industrial classes.

Fletcher as cited in “The Horace Brown Memorial Lecture”, Journal of the Institute of Brewing, xl (1934), 185.

For example, in order to guarantee responsiveness to the needs of the private sector, funds from the Development Commission to establish agricultural research institutes were to be granted only if matched on a “pound-for-pound” by funds from private donors. Yet, no such private donations were sought for the establishment of the Plant Breeding Institute at the University of Cambridge, and the Development Commission provided all the necessary funds; see Olby , op. cit. (ref. 11).

See the relatively favourable comments by the Edinburgh graduate and Official Botanist to the Royal Agricultural Society of England, William Carruthers, in “On improving cultivated plants by selection and crossing”, Journal of the Bath and West of England Agricultural Society , series v, 1906–7, 48–66; and also the rather more critical assessment in “Plant breeding in America”, Nature, lxxiii (1906), 242–3.

As David Edgerton and Sally Horrocks have cautioned us, we should not assume that the history of scientific research and development during the last century is the history of academic centres for research, see Edgerton Horrocks , op. cit. (ref. 5). On universities and professionalization in both Great Britain and the United States, see Engel A. , “The English universities and professional education”, in Jarausch , op. cit. (ref. 127), 293–305; and Light D. W. , “The development of professional schools in America”, ibid., 345–65.

Hughes Thomas , American genesis: A century of innovation and technological enthusiasm, 1870–1970 (Harmondsworth, 1989).

Dreyer , op. cit. (ref. 13), 261; and Cook O. F. , “Saint Luther: A Burbank cult, with an account of his wonder-working methods of plant breeding”, Journal of heredity, xx (1929), 309–18.

Marcus Alan , Agricultural science and the quest for legitimacy: Farmers, agricultural colleges, and experiment stations, 1870–1890 (Ames, 1985), 7–26.

Howard , op. cit. (ref. 18), 354; see also Archives of the University of California, Berkeley, CR6, Walter L. Howard Collection: Folder 8: Interview with Henderson W. H. , 3/4 July 1938. In 1922, Henderson had applied to study with Burbank.

It seems significant that the idea to establish the Country Life Commission, an effort to facilitate American farmers' transition to a fully capitalist agricultural economy, may have originated with Horace Plunkett. Plunkett had been involved with similar efforts during the 1880s and '90s to resolve the economic and social problems facing Irish farmers. See Bowers W. L. , The Country Life Movement in America, 1900–1920 (Port Washington, 1974); and also Mann A. , “British social thought and American reformers of the Progressive Era”, Mississippi Valley historical review, xlii (1956), 672–92.

Rümker Tschermak , op. cit. (ref. 31), 64–65.

Marcus , op. cit. (ref. 141).

On farmers' attitudes toward “experts”, see Marcus , op. cit. (ref. 141), 7–26.

See Rodgers , op. cit. (ref. 25), 358 and 456, and then cf. with p. 432. See also Howard , op. cit. (ref. 18), 354–6. Notice that, almost as to exemplify the contradictions of the Progressive movement, Bailey did not see the implications of his observation for his own efforts to introduce more specialized approaches to agricultural science (see Noble David W. , The paradox of progressive thought (Minneapolis, 1958)).

Marcus , op. cit. (ref. 141), 27–58.

Rosenberg , op. cit. (ref. 47), 153–72; and also Rodgers , op. cit. (ref. 25), 131–3. It is also interesting to notice that Erich Tschermak, following his tour of American facilities for agricultural research, commented that work in the state agricultural experiment stations and agricultural colleges was too closely tied to practice for his own taste, but that their effectiveness should strike a cautionary note against German agricultural colleges becoming too academic. See Rümker Tschermak , op. cit. (ref. 31), 128–9.

Marcus , op. cit. (ref. 141), 87–126. Considering the very large number of biologists employed at the turn of the century by the agricultural colleges and experiment stations, this situation seems to add an interesting institutional dimension to the much discussed conflict between “naturalists” and “experimentalists”.

Goff E. S. , “Plant breeding at the experiment stations”, Garden and forest, viii (1895), 292. See also Archives of the University of California, Davis, D37, Wickson Eugene J. Collection: Letters to Wickson from Kyle E. J. , 30 May 1905; Henricksen H. C. , 25 May 1905; and Munson W. M. , 15 May 1905.

See Wiebe R. H. , The search for order, 1877–1920 (New York, 1967).

Howard , op. cit. (ref. 18), 354–6; see also Veysey Lawrence , The emergence of the American university (Chicago, 1965), 125–33. On the significance of the German model in the American development of biology as a discipline onto itself, with a separate identity from medicine, see Pauly Philip , “The appearance of academic biology in late 19th century America”, Journal of the history of biology, xvii (1984), 369–97.

On the struggles among agricultural scientists over their proper functions, see, for example, the discussion between the entomologists Slingerland M. V. Forbes R. H. in Proceedings of the American Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations , xxi (1907), 110; see also Rosenberg , op. cit. (ref. 47), 173–84.

On the transformation of rural America into an integral part of a corporate society, see Danbohm , op. cit. (ref. 51); see also Mitchell Theodore R. Lowe Robert , “To sow contentment: Philanthropy, scientific agriculture and the making of the New South: 1906–1920”, Journal of social history, xxiv (1990), 317–40.

See Haber Samuel , Efficiency and uplift: Scientific management in the Progressive Era (Chicago, 1964); and also Noble David F. , America by design: Science, technology, and the rise of corporate capitalism (New York, 1977).

Kimmelman , op. cit. (ref. 11), 50.

See Wickson Eugene J. , “The real Luther Burbank”, Sunset magazine, xv (1905), 2–16, especially p. 8; and Rodgers , op. cit. (ref. 25), 97. On similar reactions of scientists in the United States Department of Agriculture, see their comments on Burbank in “Report on international conference on plant breeding and hybridization, 1902”, Experiment station record, xiv (1902–3), 211–12.

Jones , op. cit. (ref. 14), 73 and 189.

Ibid., 86.

Archives of the University of California, Berkeley, CR6, Howard Walter L. Collection: Folder 4: Burbank Scrapbook: vol. xii (1910–11), 74–75: Bigelow E. F. , “The application of knowledge”, Guide to nature, Sept. 1910.

See Los Angeles Times, 26 Aug. 1906, 16; and Archives of the University of California, Davis, D37, Wickson Eugene J. Collection: Braunton E. M. to Wickson , 12 Sept. 1908. On the early years of the horticultural industry in California, see Wickson Eugene J. , California nurserymen and the plant industry, 1858–1910 (Los Angeles, 1921); interestingly, Burbank receives only minimal attention in this account.

Braverman Harry , Labor and monopoly capital: The degradation of work in the twentieth century (New York, 1974).

See, for example, the fate of Edison and the Naval Consulting Board which he organized during the First World War to support the national war effort. They were eventually displaced by the university-led National Research Council, which was closely allied with the major philanthropic organizations of the day; Kevles , op. cit. (ref. 3), 102–38. That Burbank was similarly out of step with the transformation of American political economy is evident from George Roeding's assessment of his fate; Kruckeberg H. W. , George Christian Roeding, 1868–1928: The story of California's leading nurseryman and fruit grower (Los Angeles, 1930), 34.

Archives of the University of California, Davis, D37, Wickson Eugene J. Collection: Letters to Wickson from J. Craig, 11 May 1905; Stubenrauch A. V. , 23 May 1905; Stuart W. , 17 May 1905; and Brackett G. B. , 17 May 1905.

Archives of the University of California, Berkeley, CR6, Howard Walter L. Collection: Folder 19: Albert F. Etter to Howard, 15 May 1937. See also Etter Albert F. , Ettersburg strawberries, describing varieties and breeding methods as practiced at Ettersburg Experiment Place (Eureka, 1920).

Tobey , op. cit. (ref. 6), 25.

Allen David E. , The naturalist in Britain: A social history (London, 1976); and Sheail John , Seventy-five years in ecology: The British Ecological Society (Oxford, 1987).

See Kimmelman , “American Breeders' Association” (ref. 28) and op. cit. (ref. 11); and Kevles Daniel J. , “Genetics in the United States and Great Britain, 1890–1930: A review with speculations”, Isis, lxxvi (1980), 441–5.

See Drummond in Brooks Frederick T. (ed.), Imperial Botanical Conference (Cambridge, 1925), 54–57 and 360–3.

See Shils Edward , “The profession of science”, Advancement of science, xxiv (1968), 469–80; Ben David Joseph , “The profession of science and its powers”, Minerva, x (1972), 362–83; and also Parsons Thomas , “Professions”, International encyclopedia of the social sciences, xii, 536–47.

Once again, we see that even in Great Britain and the United States, government played a fundamental role in the emergence of a professional society, albeit of a far less bureaucratic vein than in France, for example. See Geison Gerald L. , “Introduction” and Ramsey M. , “The politics of professional monopoly in nineteenth century medicine: The French model and its rivals”, in Geison (ed.), Professions and the French State, 1700–1900 (Philadelphia, 1984), 1–12 and 225–305 respectively.

See Goldstein Jan , “Foucault among the sociologists: The ‘disciplines’ and the history of the professions”, History and theory, xxiii (1984), 170–92.