NATURAL SCIENCE AND ECONOMIC PROGRESS IN A CONTEXT OF COMMERCIAL HORTICULTURE

In some circumstances they are seen to be integrated: but in horticulture there is no integrator and the two disciplines do not naturally converge. Scientists in horticulture have cause to mistrust or negate applied economics on its past record. This is not to say that, if the combined effort were less one-sided the economic attitude could, in time, ramify deservedly and usefully into scientific research. The function of economics should be to deliver science into the real world.

This postulate arises from the complex nature of the real world and the simplification necessary to scientific advance. Thus, there is a field in horticultural production to which economics can provide the model of the system and science the data, and the two can then be directly integrated.

This complementary merging of disciplines can be expected in some small-scale endeavours and may not be generally applicable. The small scale of single experiments may be wholly scientific: and as the scale of consideration increases, economics tend to subordinate science, but the disciplines are not naturally convergent and bridges between them are called for as an act of policy.

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