250 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, [Jan., 



future, which may or may not develop along the lines that I 

 have to speak about — the dairy work of the station — the 

 subject which Prof. Atwater has asked me to say a few words 

 about. So far as the station is concerned directly the amount 

 of dairy experimentation in the past has been small. There 

 has been some, however, that has been done at Storrs, but 

 most of the work that Prof. Atwater has spoken of has been 

 done in my own laboratory at Middletown. As has been in- 

 dicated, however, there has been this year a determination 

 upon the part of the trustees of the college that dairying at 

 Storrs shall receive more attention in the future than it has 

 in the past. I cannot, therefore, under these circumstances 

 speak of dairying at the station with regard to what has been 

 done. All I can do is to take a little time to call your atten- 

 tion to some of the thoughts, and to some of the principles 

 and plans that lie in our minds, and in regard to which we are 

 planning experimentation at the station. The results of 

 what I have to say may not be practical. They may not 

 appeal to you. They may appeal to you as being extremely 

 useless, and yet they are the thoughts which must control 

 the development of the future along these particular lines. 



Now, in the first place, I want to call your attention to 

 this: the farmer who understands that conditions change, and 

 who tries to adapt himself to the new conditions, is the farmer 

 who makes a success. It is just as true here as in any other 

 line of business. The farmer who thinks that his father did 

 well enough, and that all he has to do is to follow along in 

 the same lines that were followed by his father or grand- 

 father, is the farmer who is constantly under a burden of 

 debt, and a man who is telling other farmers that farming 

 does not pay, and that it's a hard, dog's life. The conditions 

 of agricultural life are changing just as rapidly, or almost as 

 rapidly, as they are in any form of industrial life. No man 

 can go into business today, as did our fathers before us, with 

 any hope of succeeding, no man can go into agriculture to- 

 day with any hope of succeeding, if he follows just the same 

 path that our fathers followed. New conditions demand new 

 knowledge and new applications of that knowledge. One or 

 two or perhaps three generations ago the farm was a little 

 independent kingdom on which the farmer raised pretty 

 nearly everything that he needed; even perhaps to the wool 



