Introduction

In the spring of 1996 there was held at Australia’s first decentralized university, the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, a special anniversary seminar to mark the first forty years of the teaching here of a distinctive discipline, the one long and affectionately known as ‘Rural Science’. The occasion was carefully planned as a personal tribute to the remarkable theoretical and practical achievements of Rural Science’s begetter and long time leader, Emeritus Professor G.L. (Bill) McClymont (b. 1920), who was well able to savour all its offerings of that very well attended and scholarly commemorative gathering, despite his then failing health.