670 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



FOOD AND ENERGY. 



BY DR. HENRY PRENTISS ARM3BY, Director of the. Pennsylvania State College AgricultXiral Ex- 



periMcnt Station, State College, Pa. 



iSome at least of the members of the Board of Agriculture have 

 probably heard more or less of a new apparatus which has been in 

 process of construction at the State Experiment Station for the past 

 two years. They are aware that this apparatus is designed for use 

 in some way in experiments upon the nutrition of our domestic ani- 

 mals, and they have probably gathered that it is likely a very com- 

 plicated and ''scientific" piece of machinery and have perhaps asked 

 themselves, ''of what use can investigations made by such refined 

 methods be to the ordinary practical farmer?" I have thought that 

 it might be of some interest to the Board if I were to take this op- 

 portunity to explain, in a general way, the nature of the work to be 

 carried on and the general methods employed, and to indicate what 

 results of practical value are likely to be reached. I have felt the 

 more inclined to do this because the question of the practical value 

 of the researches is an eminently proper one. The Agricultural 

 Experiment Stations are sustained by the public funds and the pub- 

 lic is perfectly right in demanding that the work of the stations 

 should have an ultimate practical aim. They are not at liberty to 

 carry out purely scientific investigations simply for the sake of add- 

 ing to the sum of human knowledge, without any reference to the 

 practical value of that knowledge. 



It must be remembered, however, that an experiment may be ulti- 

 mately of the highest practical value, even when it does not lead to 

 any immediate practical result. Some forty or fifty years ago, some 

 of the leading agricultural scientists of Germany were spending a 

 large amount of time and energy in growing a few plants of barley 

 or corn or oats in solutions without the use of any soil whatever. 

 Repeated experiments were required to determine just what condi- 

 tions were most favorable for growing plants in this way, and much 

 more time still was expended in finding out just what materials 

 must be present in the solution, what ones might be omitted, and 

 what ones were actually poisonous to the plant. To the practical 

 farmn- who visited their laboratories, this must have appeared very 

 remote from the conditions of agricultural practice. One can hardly 



