INDIANA HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 369 



workers and the people for whom they work will eventually rejoice to- 

 gether iu permanent horticultural progress. 



Mr. Burton: I am glad Professor Beach has come here and given us 

 such a good paper, and has relieved my mind somewhat about the action 

 of the experiment station. The teacher in these stations is a teacher in 

 experiments. Some things come up in my way in managing the orchard 

 that I thought possibly ought long ago to have been answered by these 

 experiment stations, and I was brought to a standstill until I found these 

 things out myself. The Professor has explained that they are not work- 

 ing along that line, they are teaching what somebody has found out some- 

 where else, and are getting it in shape to give it to the people. I thank 

 the Professor for the paper and feel more generous toward that class of 

 instructors. 



Professor Beach: My desire is that you Avill all speak your minds 

 freely on this subject. I am willing to take my share of the faults of 

 the experiment station. I know something of the farmers' feeling toward 

 the station. Some do not believe stations are doing what they ought to 

 do. A great many others can not help but feel that stations have been 

 some help in the progress ms^de in agriculture and horticulture. They 

 can be of a great deal more help. The way to correct these things is to 

 fii-st recognize what the work of the experiment station is, and see if 

 we can so adjust matters that we can expect an ordinary man with the 

 special training he is given to. do this work for us. They are not men 

 who can do twice the work of ordinary men. I am glad that here in 

 Indiana you are working along that line and have Mr. Stuart in the ex- 

 periment station who does not have teaching to do and who can sit down 

 and watch his experiments all summer and winter if he wants to, and 

 I think all stations in the United States will come more and more to doing 

 work in that way. 



Mr. Zion: I would like to ask a question. I have had some experi- 

 ence in experiment stations. Do not these men qualified in connection 

 with universities, resort to artificial means in the way of soil that is 

 away beyond a practical use to ordinary farm or fruit growing? That 

 has destroyed my confidence more than anything else. 



Professor Beach: That opens up to my mind one of the objections 

 I have tried to bring out here today, relying too much upon results which 

 are obtained outside of their own farm. Of course I can not say what 

 other growers and horticulturists have done in their tests. The point is, 

 as said of the strawberry business. Professor Troop or myself may con- 

 tract for sixty or seventy varieties of strawberries, watch their growth 

 through the season, sit down and make out a list and show which one 

 has done the best with him; yet another man, taking the same list of 

 strawberries on another soil in another locality, might get different re- 



24— Agricnlture. 



