180 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



people of the country and to the world. Now the State of 

 Massachusetts has a proper agricultural station. We do not 

 want experiments made upon everybody's land, in all sorts of 

 ways. The only experiments that will be of any use or ben- 

 efit to the world are experiments made by men of the highest 

 science. They must be made by men who know whereof they 

 affirm, who know enough to take into consideration all the 

 circumstances which afi^ect the result ; who are able to tell 

 what the soil is, what the manure is, and what the crop is 

 from beginning to end ; and you cannot have that except you 

 have the best-educated men who can be found ; and when you 

 have secured the best of them for the service, you will have 

 some mistakes. Nobody is perfect, and you must not be 

 afraid of havins: too much knowledge or too much time and 

 money spent in getting information. What we need is the 

 means of establishing at our Agricultural College such an ex- 

 perimental station. Not that we need it ; we do not need it. 

 We are living along there first rate. We do not work half so 

 hard as we should if we had more money. What Ave want is 

 money to establish such an experimental station as will enable 

 us to make all these experiments. The general plan sug- 

 gested by Mr. Ward is a good one ; but we do not want these 

 experiments made by ignorant men. We do not want them 

 made in such a way that one crop shall take from another 

 crop. If I were going to modify his plan, instead of bringing 

 my plots of land contiguous, I would have a blank space be- 

 tween every two squares. Otherwise the plants will lap over 

 from one into the other, and so there would be a great many 

 possibihties of mistake. These possibilities are to be avoided, 

 and they cannot be avoided unless we bring as much knowl- 

 edge to bear upon the case as possible. 



In Europe these experimental stations have been established 

 and been at work for a great many years. They have accomp- 

 lished extraordinary results, and those results are felt by the 

 farmers of Europe. The farming of Germany has increased 

 in its profits wonderfully in the last twenty years, and very 

 largely through the influence of these experimental stations. 

 There can be no question that these things will pay ; for as I 

 said last night in my lecture, the least real development in 

 agriculture is of infinite value. Whoever can increase the 



