DEPARTMENT REPORTS. 35 



be avoided. On siu-h questions e\-erv one has an opinion, but the final 

 decision should be left to the expert. Here, if anywhere, special train- 

 ing and exjjerienee counts, and should not be set aside for preferences 

 tliat may be laruely matters of sentiment. 



THE EXPERIMENT STATION. 



The act approved February 12, 1855, establishing the Michigan Agri- 

 cultural College provided among other things tliat the secretary of the 

 college — 



"ir«lhall keep a careful account with each field, in connection with a 

 plan of the farming lauds or farm, exhibiting the position of each, in 

 which sliall be shown the manner and cost of preparing the ground, 

 the kind of crop, time of planting or sowing, the after condition, the 

 time and manner of harvesting, the labor devoted to each process, and 

 its cost price, with tlie cost of preparing the matured crop for market, 

 and the price for which it was sold * * * and the said record 

 shall, at all reasonable hours, be open to the inspection of any citizen 

 of this state.'" 



Experimental work in agriculture, under the operation of this act, 

 began with the o])ening of the college and has continued without a break 

 to the present time. When the college was reorganized in 1861 the work 

 of experimentation was made even stronger. The secretary of the board 

 of agriculture was instructed to gather information from all sources 

 and disseminate it among the farmers of the state. Section 9 of this 

 act authorizes him to distribute seeds, plants, trees and shrubs to those 

 farmers who would agree to cultivate them proj)erly and return to the 

 secretary a portion of the products thereof, with a full statement of 

 the mode of cultivation, and such other information as might be neces- 

 sary to ascertain their value for general cultivation in the state. This 

 information was to be given to the newspapers of the state. 



It does not seem from the reports that there were many results at 

 that time from the co-o])erative work with farmers; but there was much 

 valuable research Avork done by the various professol's in the early years 

 of the college. Manly Miles was connected with the institution as a 

 professor from 1861 to 1875. Much of his work was at least a quarter 

 of a century ahead of his time. His experiments in lamb feeding in 

 1866 would be a credit to any experiment station at the present day. 

 Who was Doctor :Miles? — Dr. Burrell, vice president of the university 

 of Illinois, in speaking of the call extended by that institution to Dr. 

 Miles in 3870 says, "No one else in America at this time enjoyed any- 

 thing comparable with Dr. Miles in the |)ublic estimation of competency 

 to give instruction in scientific agriculture. It was he who had been 

 called the only professor of the subject in the country." 



In 1885 the legislature of Michigan passed an act ])roviding for the 

 dissemination of the results of experiments made at the college among 

 the people of the state, in bulletin form. The professors of chemistry, 

 botany, zoology, agriculture, horticulture and veterinary science, were 

 required to prepare at least two articles each year which were to be 

 sent to the press of the state. The expense for jn-inting these bulletins, 

 postage, etc., was to be paid out of the general funds of the state. 



