INDUSTRIAL PllOGRESS DURING THE YEAR 1876. clxxxi 



AGRICULTUEE AND RUKAL ECONOMY. 



By Peof. W. O. ATWATER. 



EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



European Agricultural Erperiment Stations. By far the largest part 

 of the investigations made at present in agricultural science comes 

 from the agricultural experiment stations. These institutions are 

 indigenous in Germany. The first one was founded in Moeckern, 

 in Saxony, in 1853. Since that time scarcely a year has passed 

 without seeing new stations founded in Germany or other parts of 

 Europe. In 1875 there were, as appears from statements in the 

 Landwirthscliaftlichen Vei'siicJis-Stationen, the organ of the German 

 stations, some 40 in the German Empire, of which Prussia had 

 21, Saxony 6, Bavaria 4, Baden 2, and Wiirtemberg, Saxe-Weimar, 

 Mecklenburg -Schwerin, Hesse-Darmstadt, Brunswick, Anhalt, and 

 Alsace-Lorraine 1 each. Of the other European countries, the Aus- 

 trio-Hungarian Empire had 6, Italy 12, France and Switzerland 2, 

 and Russia, Belgium, and Holland 1 institution each, which could 

 be technically called experiment stations. Besides these sixty-five 

 experiment stations, there were some twenty-five laboratories and 

 other establishments, supported by agricultural schools, societies, or 

 private individuals, and occupied with researches in agricultural 

 science. 



It is not easy to determine exactly the number of experiment sta- 

 tions in active operation in Europe at the date of the present writ 

 ing the close of 1876. That the number has increased very consid- 

 erably during the year is evident from data gathered from a number 

 of European agricultural and scientific journals and reports of sta- 

 tions, which make Ihe number essentially as follows : German Em- 

 pire, 50 ; Austrio-Hungarian Empire, 7 ; Belgium, France, Switzerland, 

 and Russia, 2 each ; Italy, 13 ; and Holland, 1 making 79 in all, be- 

 sides nearly thirty laboratories not technically experiment stations, 

 but whose work is, entu'ely or in part, the same as that of the sta- 

 tions proper. Some of the latter class are very well supported and 

 eflficient. Among these may be mentioned the following : 



" The private laboratory and farm of Boussingault, at Bechclbronn, 

 near Strasburg, in Alsatia, dating back, as a source of most valuable 

 agricultural investigations, to the year 1835." 



" The private laboratory and experimental grounds of John Bennet 

 Lawes, Rothamstead, England, where, with the co-operation of Dr. 

 J. H. Gilbert, a vast number of admirable field and stall experiments 

 have been carried on since 1845, at an annual cost of some $15,000. 



