OUR AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 357 



contain too little nitrogen, and it has been found necessary to sup- 

 plement them with other more highly nitrogenous foods. This 

 need has served to utilize a number of by-products, as gluten, lin- 

 seed, and cotton-seed meals, whose value is becoming more and 

 more widely recognized. It has been one of the chief aims of our 

 experiment stations, in extending the scientific principles of feed- 

 ing, to develop the rational use of these foods, while numbers 

 of farmers with their aid have largely increased their annual 

 products. 



One of the great problems which met our agricultural scien- 

 tists was to arrange some way in which milk could be equitably 

 bought and sold. As the amount of fat in pure milk may vary 

 anywhere from less than three to over eight per cent, it is evident 

 that the value of milk for butter-making must depend upon the 

 amount of butter-fat that it contains. Any chemist can tell us 

 this, but dairies and creameries can not afford to keep their chem- 

 ists ; so it became important to discover some method by which 

 the amount of fat in milk could be quickly and accurately ascer- 

 tained. For a number of years the attempt proved a failure, for 

 the methods proposed were misleading. As the improved breeds 

 of cattle became more prominent, it became more evident that 

 great unfairness was done in paying a definite price per quart for 

 milk without reference to its quality, and renewed and successful 

 efforts were made by the various experiment stations to obtain 

 some accurate chemical method which could be operated by any 

 dairyman of ordinary intelligence. As a result of the effort, 

 several good methods have been published within the last two 

 years, and one or another of them has come into quite extended 

 use. With the recent greatly increased supply of dairy products 

 came the invariable reduction of prices, and the margin for gain 

 has become so small that only the best cattle can be kept with 

 profit. This fact makes the methods for the determination of the 

 fat contents of milk unusually important, for by their use dairymen 

 can weed out their poorer animals and by careful selection greatly 

 enhance the value of their herds. 



The improvements in the methods of extracting sugar from 

 cane in Louisiana ; the introduction of the process of " Pasteuriza- 

 tion" of wines in California, which does away with the use of 

 antiseptics of any kind; and many other useful results, either 

 wholly or partly due to the experiment stations, might be detailed 

 to advantage. None of them, however, compare with the great 

 improvement among the American farmers themselves. The bul- 

 letins of the stations have done and are doing a good work. New 

 facts, new theories, and new interests are daily added to the 

 farmers' lives. A great school is open to them, of whatever age or 

 sex, and they are learning. They are studying science upon their 



