Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 5.pdf/41

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM

trouble with his cousin Jane. And when he suggested this to Redwood, Redwood quite agreed with him.

Redwood said he was convinced that in working so much upon needlessly small animals experimental physiologists made a great mistake. It is exactly like making experiments in chemistry with an insufficient quantity of material; errors of observation and manipulation become disproportionately large. It was of extreme importance just at present that scientific men should assert their right to have their material big. That was why he was doing his present series of experiments at the Bond Street College upon Bull Calves, in spite of a certain amount of inconvenience to the students and professors of other subjects caused by their incidental levity in the corridors. But the curves he was getting were quite exceptionally interesting, and would, when published, amply justify his choice. For his own part, were it not for the inadequate endowment of science in this country, he would never, if he could avoid it, work on anything smaller than a whale. But a Public Vivarium on a scale sufficient to render this possible was, he feared, at present, in this country at any rate, a Utopian demand. In Germany———Etc.

As Redwood's bull calves needed his daily attention, the selection and equipment of the Experimental Farm fell largely on Bensington. The entire cost, it was understood, was also to be defrayed by Bensington, at least until a grant could be obtained. Accordingly he alternated his work in the laboratory of his flat with farm-hunting up and down the lines that run southward out of London, and his peering

19