INDIANA HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 363 



ganized in 1851, in Saxony. Before the Hatch act became a law it had 

 already been demonstrated that when properly conducted such experiment 

 stations render lasting benefit to agriculture by means of scientific investi- 

 gation. In the United States the first experiment station was organized 

 in Connecticut in 1875. Others soon followed, so that at the close of 1886 

 there were seventeen of them in this country, most of them being under 

 the direction of an agricultural college and some of them receiving State 

 aid. Under the impetus to the experiment station movement which the 

 Hatch act gave, the number increased from seventeen in 1886 to forty-four 

 by the close of 1888, and most of the earlier ones became reorganized under 

 national authority and were thereby put in position to do more efficient 

 worli. It thus appears that while the agricultural colleges are modern 

 institutions, the agricultural experiment stations in this country are even 

 more modern. Less than one-third of those which are now in existence 

 in the United States have been in operation fifteen years and the oldest 

 has been organized but twenty-six years. 



Difficulties similar to those which attended the organization and de- 

 velopment of the horticultural departments in the agricultural colleges 

 were encountered in starting the work in the experiment stations. The 

 demand for men of special training to talie up horticultural worli at the 

 colleges and experiment stations was greater than the supply. In many 

 instances the worli was assigned to men whose specialty was botany or 

 entomology or some other science. In some cases it was given to prac- 

 tical men who had not received special scientific training. In some 

 places it was given to young men who, although they had been educated 

 in an agricultural college, yet because of their very youth were lacking 

 in that technical knowledge and maturity of judgment which is born of 

 years of experience. In most places the position "of station horticulturist 

 was given to the one. who had previously been the professor of horticul- 

 ture in the agricultural college. 



The way in which the horticultural work of the experiment stations 

 was administered in 1889, which was shortly after most of them were 

 started, as compared with 1901, is of interest in this connection. There 

 were then forty-four stations, now there are fifty-four. Then there were 

 twenty stations which made no provision for horticulture, now there are 

 but five. Then there were but sixteen stations having a separate depart- 

 ment for horticulture, now there are thirty-four. Then horticulture was 

 combined in a department with botany in five stations and with ento- 

 mology in three stations. Now horticulture is combined in a department 

 with botany in five stations; with botany and entomology in two stations; 

 with entomology in two stations; with biology in two stations; with agri- 

 culture in three stations, and with forestry in one station. This compari- 

 son makes it apparent that during the last twelve years the provisions for 

 horticultural investigation at the experiment stations have been greatly 

 enlarged. 



