AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 255 



of it its work have been of great value to agriculture, and by 

 means of its analyses of commercial fertilizers, it has alone 

 saved thousands upon thousands of dollars to the farmers of 

 that State. 



As indicating the methods of work employed by the ex- 

 periment stations of Continental Europe — upon which those 

 in this country are founded — and as giving a great deal of 

 useful information upon the relations they sustain to practical 

 agriculture, I present below a report upon the Agricultural 

 Experiment Stations of Europe, prepared by Prof. Samuel 

 W. Johnson, Director of the Connecticut Experiment Station, 

 and published in the annual report of the Sheffield Scientific 

 School for 1875 : 



"Farming is a perpetual trying of experiments with soils, 

 manure and crops, with cattle and cattle food, with milk, but- 

 ter and cheese, with plows, harrows, and harvesters : with an 

 almost endless list of things. The most successful farmers — 

 those who get the most out of their land, their cattle, their 

 crops, their fertilizers, their implements, and their labor — are 

 those who experiment themselves most industriously, most 

 skillfully, and most intelligently, and who take the fullest 

 advantage of the experiments of others. The best agricul- 

 ture is that which, in old countries, on worn and intractable 

 soils, has learned by long-continued and varied experiment 

 to make the gain of farming so sure, that capitalists as wil- 

 lingly loan money to invest in farm improvements as they put 

 it into bank or railroad stock. 



To take away from our agriculture what has been learned 

 by toilsome and costly experiment would put us all back into 

 the dark ages, for it would annihilate a thousand industries 

 by cutting off supplies of the raw materials they work up ; 

 it would stop our railway trains, and lay up our ships at the 

 dock, for there would be no grain, no cotton, no fruits to 

 transport. The country would stagnate for want of knowl- 

 edge how to keep its men and women employed ; the land 

 would grow up to weeds and woods for want of implements 



