Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living (Picador 40th) (5 page)

Victorian Department of Agriculture Journal, May 1934

This short and surprising article – really just a list – appears on page 33 of the
Agriculture Journal
. Before it is a technical paper on the use of copper sulphate by potato farmers and after it several pages of entomological drawings. It was unexpected, unanticipated. I didn't know what to make of it so I sought advice.

What Sister Crock said about Robert's article: ‘A man with a desire for exactitude is a man worth noting.' She said this in a kindly way – over the top of her glasses. Sister Crock is busy preparing her own articles for the
Agriculture Journal
on the model modern baby. She argues that modern women, and modern rural women in particular, are deficient in their natural capacity for their domestic responsibilities, including motherhood. Sister Crock believes that the modern human mother lacks the strength of instinct to be found in animals. She is producing three related articles:
Mother's duty to her baby, Milk and the Baby
, and
Errors of Maternity.

What Mary Maloney said about Robert's article: ‘Look, Jean, what they believe in is important – I wouldn't choose a man who has no pride in his work, but perhaps in the end it doesn't matter so much. Do you want to live with someone who thinks they know the answers, or spend your life trying to find them out together? Then there's love – and there's dancing. Now, have you ever seen him dance?'

What the superintendent said about Robert's article: ‘Mr Pettergree is a scientist of essentially sound thinking but someone liable to get a little carried away. In future I would like all articles submitted to the
Agriculture Journal
to be approved by me.'

What Mr Baker said about Robert's article, while eating a bacon sandwich: ‘Mawkish? Religion mawkish? Piffle. Did you see the article on diets for the lactating sow? Now that's worth a read, Miss Finnegan.'

What Mr Plattfuss said about Robert's article while spit-polishing his loudhailer: ‘Rules like that are all right for a plant man. In my mind that's the difference between a plant man and an animal man. An animal man isn't going to come up with concrete rules for living and doing because there's no point. With animals everything's always changing. An animal man is looking after something with a heart inside of it and you can't go living by rules when there's a heart involved.'

I wondered what Mr Ohno would make of
Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living.
And whether he has some sort of motto or list of his own.

When I spread my sewing out on my bunk each evening there is always one section that catches my eye. One small section where everything is somehow concentrated and clear. When I read Robert's article it is the second rule that stands out for me. THE ONLY TRUE FOUNDATION IS A FACT. It is a fact that I have lain naked with Robert Pettergree on the floor of the honey car. It is a fact that I see him lifting his arms and taking off his shirt over and over again in my mind – that I go to sleep at night both soothed and excited by the slow lifting of white cotton and his body being revealed beneath it. These private facts – that I don't share, even with Mary – are my foundation.

— 6 —

THREE INCIDENTS AT JEPARIT

J
eparit is memorable for other reasons too. The first is Mr Ohno's birthday. Mary bakes a pineapple upside down cake for Mr Ohno and goes to collect him from poultry. We wait in the sitting car. Everyone is there, even Robert. A few minutes pass then Mary slides the door open and encourages Mr Ohno through. He takes his place in front of the cake on the superintendent's desk and we sing happy birthday. Mary hands Mr Ohno the knife and he takes it with a bow, but he doesn't cut the cake. He clears his throat and sings his own version of happy birthday, in a high, serious wail. We stand politely to attention except for Mr Kit Collins, who is stifling a laugh. As soon as the song is over we clap. Mr Ohno bows again but still he does not cut the cake. He stands quite still holding the knife and seems overcome with emotion.

‘Anyone for harikari?' Mr Talbot whispers, but it is heard by all.

Mr Ohno looks confused. So I step forward, take his hand in mine and help him to mark out the slices.

‘Who's for cake?'

There is one slice remaining at the end. Robert's slice. He left abruptly, just after I took Mr Ohno's hand.

Jeparit is also the place where Mr Talbot from sheep gets into trouble. The superintendent has received a letter of complaint about one of Mr Talbot's herd management and husbandry lecturettes. The writer, a Mr Frank Edgcumbe, sheep farmer from Cope Cope, considers Mr Talbot's comparisons between the undesirability of breeding between cretins and breeding between inferior sheep distasteful and offensive.

Mr Talbot is deeply hurt. His quiet manner is even more subdued. We are all summoned to the sitting car to ‘clear up' the matter. I sit wedged between Robert and Sister Crock on one of the long velvet banquettes while Mr Talbot paces the aisle giving us an abridged version of his spiel. He coughs nervously when he reaches the contentious bit. Robert shifts on the seat next to me. Robert thinks this is a circus – that a farmer's complaints to a scientist are not worth the time of day, that the superintendent should be allowing the train's experts to spend time on research, not just demonstration. Robert's thigh sits alongside mine. I can feel his heat seeping through the cloth of his trousers, through my dress and stockings, deep into my skin. My face is flushed. I look down. It is perplexing that my mind can conjure such intimate pictures of Robert's body while my eyes are firmly fixed on Sister Crock's ankles.

Mr Talbot continues: ‘The rational management of breeding amongst stock can be quite simply compared to the rational management of human sexual behaviour leading to an improved and efficient human race. A healthy and vigorous sexual union, and I of course mean here
licit
sex – taking place in marriage, is as beneficial to the farm family and the nation as the healthy and appropriate union of well-chosen stock in the joining paddock.

‘The opposite, the need to control reproduction between the
illicit
or inappropriate, is just as true. Let me quote from the “Adelaide Mail”: “Restraint upon propagation of the species by individuals who are afflicted by serious physical or mental infirmities is required. The recognition by persons so afflicted of the necessity for restraint is, we need hardly say, the highest form of patriotism.”

‘So, my dear friends and patriots, I conclude by saying, don't put your prize ram with the old ewes from up the back. What you'll get out of it won't take you anywhere. Think about breeding. Think about the traits and characteristics you want to promote and plan your breeding programs with them in mind.'

It doesn't seem appropriate to clap. Although I have noticed some farmers do clap after a lecturette and the women often clap when Mary pulls something high and spicy from the oven.

Mr Talbot ventures a smile at his audience, but the superintendent rises from his desk and quickly removes it.

‘What were you thinking of, Mr Talbot, to come up with such notions? Are these your ideas or someone else's?'

Mr Talbot looks about blankly. His gaze settles on Robert and he seems to gain a little focus.

‘The
thing is
, Superintendent, that country people don't understand metaphor and so . . .'

The superintendent interrupts. He says the
thing is
that the Edgcumbes have a nineteen-year-old cretinous son whose head, instead of being filled with brains, leaks watery fluid. The son has not left the house since birth as he wears a turban of bedsheets to protect his soft, damp noggin. According to the Edgcumbes he is a fine vegetable sculptor and an able draughts player and they invite Mr Talbot, or in fact any of the lecturers from the Better Farming Train, to visit and play a game with him sometime.

The superintendent reminds us all of the influence that we have within the districts that we visit and asks us to revisit our lectures. He suggests we ask ourselves regularly, ‘Am I following the correct line?' and, ‘Am I providing the best possible example?' He shares his favourite aphorism. ‘A thoroughbred doesn't need much whipping. He does his best – do you?'

Mr G.R. (George Reid) Talbot is an acknowledged expert in sheep breeding. His Talbot Scale of Sheep Semen has been adopted across Australia.

Talbot Semen Scale

Mr Talbot developed his useful scale after testing the semen of over 1800 rams. Talbot's major scientific breakthrough was in sperm collection. He constructed a life-like artificial ewe vagina and developed considerable skill in teaching his test rams to serve it.

On the outskirts of Jeparit I have my first preparation for married life. Robert teaches me the Principles of Experimentation. It is a psycho-physical experiment. We have the cookery car to ourselves – Sister Crock is preparing lesson plans in the sitting car and Mary has made herself scarce.

1. Statement of Experiment

A person (me) claims that on tasting a cup of tea they can tell whether the milk or the tea was added to the cup first. Robert mixes eight cups of tea; four in one way and four in the other and presents them in random order (we only have six cups so he uses the gravy boat and milk jug to make up numbers). Random order, surprisingly, is not something that can be left to the human mind but must be achieved by the actual manipulation of physical apparatus. Robert uses dice but says cards or a roulette wheel are just as effective. A published collection of random sampling numbers is his preferred method but we don't have one to hand.

2. Interpretation and Reasoning

Before actually conducting the experiment it is necessary to have anticipated the range of possible results, and to have decided without ambiguity the interpretation that shall be placed upon them.

Mary would call this ‘talking it out'. After an evening in the sitting car, or after a dinner dance in town, we sit together on our bunks peeling off our stockings, rubbing our feet and going over things. We decide what was meant by the things that were said and done and forecast future developments. What interpretation should we put upon Mr Plattfuss partnering Sister Crock in several of the slower numbers?

3. Permutations and Combinations

There are seventy ways of choosing a group of four objects out of eight. A person (a cretin perhaps) who has no discrimination would in fact divide the eight cups correctly into two sets of four in one trial out of seventy. The odds could be made much higher by enlarging the experiment (more cups of tea, if available). If the experiment were smaller it would give odds so low that the results could be ascribed to pure chance.

4. The Test of Significance ‘But it is possible that the very first time I tasted the cups I could
accidentally
choose them correctly, even if I wasn't concentrating – even perhaps if I was trying on purpose to get it wrong.'

‘Why would you do that, Jean?'

‘I don't know, I can't really explain. I'm just supposing.'

‘That would be sabotage. There's no point in going on if you're going to be like that.'

He has a nervous habit of using his finger to trace the crease from his nose to his mouth. I must have seen him do it many times before but this is the first time I notice it. He does it when he is perturbed, when things aren't going to plan. He does it, I think, to comfort himself.

‘Sorry. Go on. Please go on.'

‘It is standard for experimenters to take five percent as a test of significance, in the sense that they are prepared to ignore all results which fail to reach this standard and to eliminate from further discussion the fluctuations which chance introduces into their experimental results. Do you understand that?'

‘Yes, of course. I understand.'

5. Statistical Analysis

I can choose three cups right and one cup wrong in sixteen ways.

I can choose two cups right and two wrong in thirty-six ways.

I can choose one cup right and three cups wrong in sixteen ways.

I can chose no cups right and four cups wrong in one way.

And the correct result: four cups right and none wrong – one way.

Out of seventy ways of choosing there is only one way to choose the correct result. I am certainly
feeling
less confident, although I know how I
feel
won't influence the actual results.

6. The Null Hypothesis

To each there is an opposite. Every experiment may be said to exist only in order to give the facts a chance of proving the opposite – the null hypothesis. If the results show I am unable to discriminate between the cups of tea on the basis of which ingredient was added first – milk or tea – then the null hypothesis is true.

If a woman who claimed she was good consistently acts as if she is bad to the point beyond that of statistical error, the null hypothesis is proved – she is bad.

7. Randomisation

As the subject of the experiment I could insist that all of the cups of tea be exactly alike – same thickness and smoothness of cups, same temperatures, strength and exact amounts of tea and milk. With labour and expense these lurking variables could be removed but Robert says they do not in fact constitute significant refinements to the experiment. It is his view that it is an essential characteristic of experimentation that it is carried out with limited resources.

‘Whatever level of care and skill is expended on improving and equalising conditions they will always be to a greater or lesser extent unsatisfactory. The
experimenter
chooses which causes of disturbance should be acted on and which should be ignored.'

8. Recording

Robert has ruled up a page in his notebook for the results. He shows me where to write out the hypothesis and the experimental method. There's not much to it, sort of like a baking recipe but strangely back to front. Instead of adding things together and getting something for it at the end, you start with an idea and then take things away.

Robert has two notebooks – ‘Field', for notes taken in the soil and cropping wagon and the various paddocks where we stop, and ‘Laboratory'. As the train has no laboratory he uses this book for notes taken while leaning on a dinner tray on top of his bunk. He has chosen the Field notebook for the results of the tea experiment – my experiment, and for some reason I feel disappointed by that.

9. Results

The actual experiment – the drinking and classification of the tea – is postponed as we are due at Rainbow shortly and the agriculture men have called a meeting to consolidate, as Robert puts it, ‘the plan of attack'. I wash all of the cups and pack the equipment away – kettle, tea, water, milk, teaspoons and napkins.

Robert says science never loses its moment, and that we will have plenty of opportunity to complete the experiment at a later date.

There was another incident between Jeparit and Rainbow. It was a day of travelling when we seemed to be pushing through the wheat, inching along as if caught in the doldrums on a mealy yellow sea. Mr Ohno flew a tiny paper crane into my lap as I sat sewing in the sitting car. Under one wing it said
has teas?
When I looked up he was gone.

I told Mary I was going for thread and then I followed him back down the train to the poultry car. Mr Ohno's bunk was behind the cages – a cot roped off with a patterned curtain. I could see him crouched behind it and coughed quietly so he would know I was there. He stood up and held the curtain back for me, bowing so low, in such a small space, I thought his head would touch my stomach.

‘Some tea?'

He had placed two cushions on the floor next to the cot. In between them a tiny green porcelain teapot sat on a wire grill with a lit candle flickering beneath it. He handed me a small bowl and motioned at the cushion.

‘Sit, Miss Jean.'

I watched as he lowered himself on his haunches in one swift movement, as if hinged at the hips and knees. He looked away politely as I wrapped my dress around my legs and made an ungainly descent to the cushion. I went to speak – to ask about the brand of tea and the cups without handles – but he looked up at me sharply and placed his finger in front of his lips. So I sat and watched him make the tea which, despite the rocking of the train, he did with great precision. I noticed the angles at which he placed the pot and the bowls and the serious, languid way he lifted the tea to his lips. I copied his use of both hands around the warm bowl and when I lifted them in front of me it felt something like praying.

It was very quiet in the poultry car – just the sound of the train coursing over the rails and the gentle scratching and cheeping of the chickens. Mr Ohno's clothes hung like apparitions above his cot and against the curtain so I had the impression I was in his company several times over. The crouching was becoming uncomfortable as my dress was strained tightly across my outer thighs. Looser garments would be required to sit like this for any length of time. I rubbed my hands over the taut material and considered asking Mr Ohno the Japanese word for thigh. I suspected his language was more exact and would have separate words for the two different regions – outer thigh and inner thigh.