Science Cultivating Practice

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

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2. Introduction

   • Harro Maat

   Pages 1-25

3. Science and Agriculture in the Nineteenth Century

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   Pages 27-44

4. The Organisation of Agricultural Research

   • Harro Maat

   Pages 45-76

5. Scientific Education for Agriculture

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   Pages 77-116

6. Genetics and Plant Breeding: Wheat in the Netherlands

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   Pages 117-142

7. Rice Breeding in the Dutch Colonies

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   Pages 143-172

8. Numerical Abstraction in Agricultural Science

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   Pages 173-207

9. Conclusion and Postscript

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   Pages 209-229

10. Back Matter

    Pages 231-249

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Science Cultivating Practice is an institutional history of agricultural science in the Netherlands and its overseas territories. The focus of this study is the variety of views about a proper relationship between science and (agricultural) practice. Such views and plans materialised in the overall organisation of research and education. Moreover, the book provides case studies of genetics and plant breeding in the Netherlands, colonial rice breeding, and agricultural statistics. Ideas affected the organisation as much as the other way round. The net result was an institutional development in which the values of academic science were rated higher than the values of practice.
This book is a distinctive piece of work as it treats the dynamics of science in a European as well as in a colonial context. These different ecological and social environments lead to other forms of knowledge and experimentation as well as other ways of organising science.

• agriculture
• development
• education
• plant
• plant breeding
• rice
• wheat

• Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

  Harro Maat

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