32 RKl'Oli'l' <»!■' .tKl-ICK (»K KXI'KRIMKNT SIATI0N8. 



I'lKlcr |)i-('s('iit conditions it is useless to expect tluit in these und 

 Mianv other lines (»ur stations will discover many of the j)rinci|)Ies on 

 which (he i)ennaneii( iniprovenient of our a>;ricultiii'e nnist rest. Hut 

 unless the way is opened t'oi* them to seriously attack these fundamental 

 ])i'ol)lems their fuluic work will ncc'e.ssai"ily l)e comparatively fra<^- 

 mentary and inconclufsive. They may, Jis in the past, obtain many 

 results which can he usefully applied in ])raetiee, hut they will not he 

 al)le to furnish a solid foundation for the eidarjr(>ment of our aj^ricul- 

 tural industries. The reciMit work 011 cheese niakiiif^, which has been 

 ])rielly sununarized elsewhere in this report, is a t^ood illustration of 

 what may he accomplished in many lines if the financial resources of 

 the experimenters are adequate for the work undertaken by them. 

 By means of investigations costing' thousands of dollars and cxtendinj^ 

 over a number of years the interests of an industry which is ninv large, 

 but which is likely to be very greatly extended in the future, have been 

 permanently ajid advantageously affected. The economy of using 

 relatively large sums of money in fundamental iniiuiries has thus been 

 signally shown. 



As pointed out in previous reports, there is another side of the 

 work of the stations which needs to be greatly extended. It is, in 

 many cases, not enough that the stations should discover new facts 

 and principles. They must show definitely how these can be utilized 

 in agricultural practice. This requires that they should be in a posi- 

 tion to work outside of their laboratories and experimental plats. 

 They must carry on experiments under actua,l farm conditions, and on 

 a really practical scale, before it can be truly said that they have 

 demonstrated the usefulness of their new discoveries. It used to be 

 said that this was not the function of the stations, but that the fai'mers 

 themselves must demonstrate the practical usefulness of the residts 

 obtained hy the stations. There is, of course, a sense in which this 

 will always be true, for the conditions of no two farmers are exactly 

 alike, and whatever the stations do the farmers will still need to adapt 

 the results to the requirements of their own farms. But, on the other 

 hand, it is often a very expensive proceeding to the farmers to under- 

 take to apply results obtained by the stations on a very small scale to 

 even the general recjuirements of farm practice. It is usually true that 

 la))oratory and plat results nuist )»e modified in various ways to make 

 them practically serviceable, and this can be much more economically 

 done by the stations than by the farmers. For example, if a station 

 breeds a new variety of grain, it would be much better and less expen- 

 sive for the station to retain control of this variety and carry on field 

 experiments with it on a considerable nimil)er of farms in different 

 localities than if the seed is at first distributed to farmers indiscrim- 

 inately. Much of this more practical work can be carried on in 

 cooperation with farmers, but to do it efficiently will require more 

 funds than the stations at present possess. 



