6 -JO ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



STATUS AND PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE IN 



1878. 



In no previous time has agricultural thought been so on 

 the alert, investigation so active, and practice so progressive 

 as at present. Of the past year this is especially true. 



Of the demand for science we have evidence in the tone of 

 the agricultural papers, which formerly scoffed at science, but 

 now devote columns to abstract articles on chemistry and 

 physiology; in the interest of farmers, who demand the dis- 

 cussions, and even take part in them, in meetings and in 

 print; and in the increased bestowal of money by legisla- 

 tures, schools, and individuals for the endowment of experi- 

 ment stations, and otherwise aiding agricultural research. 



An idea of the amount of the investigation may be gathered 

 from the fact that the Centralblatt fur Agrikulturchemie for 

 1878 has culled abstracts of experiments and investigations 

 in agricultural chemistry and allied sciences from ninety-two 

 journals, and that the titles of these researches fill twenty- 

 three octavo pages; while the JaJiresbericht der Agricultur- 

 chemie for 1877, just out, requires seven octavo pages for the 

 names of the authors, thirty for the titles, and nearly seven 

 hundred pages for the brief abstracts of their investigations. 



The improved modes of culture, implements, and stock; 

 the better saving of the products of the firm ; the larger and 

 more rational use of purchased fertilizers and foods; and, 

 what is no less encouraging, the increased attention given to 

 careful experiments by farmers these all bear testimony to 

 the increase and the profit of the application of science to the 

 management of the farm. 



Agricultural Science in Europe. 



The bulk of the abstract agricultural research is done in 

 Germany, where science is found as useful in farming as in 

 Avar, and between one and two hundred chemists and physi- 

 ologists are employed in not far from ninety experiment 

 stations and other institutions in studying the perplexing 

 problems of farm science. Similar work is being done in all 

 the other European countries, except Portugal and Turkey. 

 Accounts of some of the more interesting results are given in 

 the following pages. 



