74 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
Cincinnati meeting of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science, in 1881, Dr. Sturtevant gave a 
statement of the records of this lysimeter for the years 
1876-1879 inclusive. 
So intense became his interest in things agricultural, and 
so fertile was he in suggestions relative to agricultural prob- 
lems, that he came to be quite in demand as a speaker 
before agricultural societies. He delivered many addresses 
in the seventies before boards of agriculture, dairy associa- 
tions, etc., and gradually his reputation as an advanced 
agricultural thinker and scientist spread over New England 
and the Middle States. So favorably was he known, that 
in 1882 the newly created board of trustees of the New 
York State Agricultural Experiment Station invited him to 
become Director and organizer of the station. This posi- 
tion he accepted, removing to Geneva with his family and 
taking up the development of this new work. There was 
but little for him to pattern after. None of the stations 
organized under the Hatch Act of Congress was then in 
existence. Connecticut, on July 11, 1877, had organized a 
modest station, which was mainly a chemical laboratory, 
and Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina and per- 
haps one or two other States had begun the work of organ- 
ization before New York, but the latter State was the first 
to plan on an extensive scale. Scarcely anything but chem- 
ical research work had been accomplished, unless we except 
some field and feeding experiments carried on in a small 
way by the agricultural departments of some of the State 
colleges. Dr. Sturtevant began to develop the Station as 
a several-sided institution. Chemical, botanical, horticul- 
tural, live stock and crop departments were established. 
Within two or three years a working plant was organized 
and put into operation, that at that time received much 
attention from agriculturally interested persons. (The chem- 
ical work of Babcock and Ladd, the botanical work of 
Arthur, the horticultural work of Goff and the field and 
