• AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS. 275 



But a little thought will satisfy any reasonable man that, as 

 things are, with an equipment of men and means inadequate for 

 the purposes of instruction (as is the case with the Maine College 

 of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, and with many like institu- 

 tions in other States) such expectations ought not to be enter- 

 tained. There is needed for this purpose in every State in the 

 Union an establishment specially equipped for this express pur- 

 pose at the public charge ; something equivalent to the experi- 

 mental stations of Germany, where competent men are furnished 

 with the necessary means, and where they can devote well- 

 directed and undivided efforts to the solution of agricultural 

 problems, or, it may be, to original investigations undertaken for 

 the acquisition of knowledge not yet attained, but which is indis- 

 pensibly preliminary to their solution. 



An impression very commonly prevails that these problems can 

 be solved by chemistry alone, and that it is the special function of 

 Agricultural Chemistry to solve them. Nothing can be farther 

 from the truth. These questions are rarely such as merely require 

 familiarity with the chemical forces involved. For the most part 

 they are equally interwoven with animal and vegetable physiol- 

 ogy, and the far more recondite phenomena of life are in constant 

 activity in connection with chemical forces. It is also true that 

 what seems at the outset to be a single problem, and an easy one, 

 proves upon examination, to comprehend several questions, and 

 some of them demanding a degree of knowledge not yet attained ; 

 so that preliminary investigations must precede work immediately 

 directed toward its solution. Add to these considerations the 

 further fact that the investigations are to be conducted, and that 

 such views, hypotheses or conclusions as are reached from time to 

 time, have to be tested under the varying influence of climate, 

 weather and numerous other perturbing causes, and we begin to 

 get a glimpse of the herculean nature of the attempted task. 



A convention of gentlemen connected with many of the Agri- 

 cultural Colleges 'was held at Chicago, last year, for purposes of 

 mutual consultation upon many points connected with their effi- 

 cient progress, including a programme of experiments to be 

 undertaken by all, in order to secure uniformity of efforts and 

 cooperation with one another. The discussions upon that occasion 

 were highly suggestive and instructive. A part of them are here 

 appended, and, although the report is evidently faulty in some 

 respects, they will be found interesting and useful, and may con- 



