308 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Perhaps there was no subject which received the attention of 

 the convention, more important than that of establishing Experi- 

 mental Farms and Stations for the promotion of agricultural knowl- 

 edge. Upon this topic an able report was prepared by Prof. 8. 

 W. Johnson of New Haven, Conn., from which we extract the 

 following statements : 



"The first requisite in this work is a clear vision of what it is 

 practicable to accomplish. There are questions whose solution 

 would be of the highest service, which it now appears nearly 

 hopeless to expect will yield to anything but the most scientific 

 and prolonged siege. There are others which in all probability, 

 may be resolved in a short time. To the first class belong the 

 higher problems of cattle feeding. The precise condition of the 

 formation of nitrates in the soil is a subject of the very highest 

 practical importance in its bearing on the economy of manures and 

 on the rotation of crops, which doubtless might be quite fully 

 elucidated by a comparatively easy chemical investigation. 



In the second place, a. full knowledge of what has been done in 

 other years and in other countries must be obtained before the 

 work of investigation can be intellectually laid out. In Great 

 Britain, France, and especially in Germany, has accumulated a 

 mass oi' observations, facts and conclusions, which constitute a 

 capital for prosecuting this business, which we can borrow by 

 paying the slight interest of translation and publication, and with- 

 out which we shall waste years of work in simply rediscovering 

 what is already known and in repeating the trials which have 

 been found fruitless." 



It is gratifying to record the fact that the task of eliminating 

 from this material, and preparing for publication whatever promises 

 to be most serviceable to American farmers, has been intrusted to 

 Prof. S. W. Johnson, who was requested by the convention to 

 prepare such further report as in his judgment may be best fitted 

 to set forth the character, value and practicability of Experimental 

 Stations. 



The following resolve, relating in part to military instruction in 

 agricultural colleges, introduced by Senator Morrill of Vermont, 

 and readily passed by the convention, sufficiently explains itself: 



" Resolved, That as a sense of this convention, we deem it of 

 paramount importance to ask of Congress, as we do earnestly, for 

 an additional donation of land, or proceeds of land, sufficient to 

 found a professorship of some of the branches of practical science 



