CONDITIONS OF SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENTING. 3^9 



That was a valuable contribiition to agriculture. During that 

 year he spent in his experiments two thousand pounds. He has 

 carried on these experiments until the present time, spending year 

 after year between two and three thousand pounds steiiiug in 

 these investigations. He has studied almost everything that goes 

 on to a farm, and almost everything that can be taken ofi" a farm ; 

 he has studied the growth of animals, and the laws that govern' 

 reproduction ; and all these points have been studied as his first 

 experiment was studied, carefully and accurately, and correctly 

 interpreted. 



In giving these facts from memory, I may not have given the 

 details in their proper order, but the outline of the experimenta- 

 tion can be found in any of the agricultural cyclopedias. This 

 gentleman, Mr. Lawes, and his associate, Mr. Gilbert, have by 

 their experiments overthrown some of the brilliant but false 

 theories which were brought forward by the great Liebig, who 

 has been obliged to recede from some of the positions taken early 

 in his life. He has been forced to do so in some cases by the 

 results obtained by Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert. Here I will say, 

 that in making a very graceful recantation, Liebig says he is 

 simply moulting his wings for a higher flight. There is no gen- 

 eralizer to whom agriculture is more largely indebted than to 

 Liebig, who gave to organic chemistry methods of organic analy- 

 sis. Let us hope, however, that the next theories he brings for- 

 ward will be brought as the result of .experiments extending over 

 a long time, and experiments which satisfy the conditions which 

 I have stated. 



Now, gentlemen, is it possible for the members of the Board of 

 Agriculture to undertake experiments and conduct them in this 

 manner? I think you would all* agree that at present it might be 

 impracticable to undertake such scientific experiments upon a large 

 scale. What may be called tentative experiments may however be 

 successfully conducted by every farmer in Maine. By such an 

 experiment I mean a practical trial in order to settle questions 

 upon one's own farm. This subject will be alluded to by Professor 

 Brackett, in his lecture this evening. Such tentative experiments 

 repeated many times with the same results, have almost the same 

 authority as the scientific experiments which I have detailed. You 

 know the subject of an "Experimental Station" has been broached. 

 It has not been met with any opposition, but perhaps at the pres- 

 ent time it would be impossible, for lack of means, to establish an 



