254 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [JaU-r 



the dairy work at the station has been trying quite a number 

 of experiments. Now what lines of experimentation have 

 you been undertaking? What Hues of experimentation have 

 we in mind? The first question perhaps that may occur to 

 your minds is this: Are the experiments that this station is 

 conducting in dairying going to be of any practical use? 

 Many farmers do not care much about scientific experiment- 

 ing unless it has some practical value, and in fact most people 

 can see no use in an experiment that does not aim to be, or 

 to disclose something which will be, distinctly practical. Let 

 me say a few words just on that very point. The most suc- 

 cessful experimenting is the kind of experimenting that goes 

 the deepest, and that turns its back entirely upon the ques- 

 tion of practical results; letting the practical results come 

 if they will. Therefore we do not embarrass ourselves at 

 the outset by any notion as to whether practical results are 

 to flow from a given line of experimentation or not. We let 

 that alone. The kind of experimentation that succeeds is the 

 kind that says to itself: " Here is a problem which should be 

 solved; let us solve it, whether there is any practical value in 

 it or not." Hence, we never can tell what the practical re- 

 sults are going to be. We never know whether a line of ex- 

 perimentation is of any practical value until we are through. 

 Nine times out of ten that is the case. When our friend 

 Prof. Atwater began to publish great long columns of figures 

 on the analyses of food, it wasn't worth much, was it? No- 

 body thought so. Nobody read those figures, and I do not 

 believe Prof. Atwater has ever looked them over since he 

 published them. Have you. Prof. Atwater? 



Prof. Atwater. No, and I never expect to. 



Prof. Conn. There was no use whatsoever, was there, in 

 analyzing food, to see how much carbohydrate or protein 

 there was in it, things that the farmer didn't know anything 

 about a few years ago? I know well enough that the farmers 

 of that day shook their heads over that sort of work, but let 

 me ask you this: is there a person here today that does not 

 know that that resulted in some of the most practical and use- 

 ful conclusions that have ever resulted from the experiment 

 station work? You cannot today feed your cows properly 

 without making use of just those tables; not the individual 



