EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 349 



The suggestions tlirown out in the essay upon the man- 

 agement of societies, to be found on a preceding page of this 

 Report, are worthy of careful consideration by the officers of 

 all such institutions. They point out the changes that are 

 required to increase the efficiency and the usefulness of 

 many agricultural societies, and furnish very timely hints for 

 those who honestly desire to set up and maintain a higher 

 standard of excellence. However much our societies have 

 done to advance the cause of agricultural improvement and 

 prosperity (and it is by no means small in amount), it must be 

 admitted that they have fallen far short of their possibilities. 

 No society would claim that it could not do more to stimu- 

 late the development of the agricultural resources within its 

 limits. How tliis may be done, and how the societies may 

 correct the faults, of which there is more or less just com- 

 plaint, has already been pointed out. 



The societies can, without doubt, do more than they are 

 doing, to stimulate and encourage more accurate, careful, and 

 scientific experiments, and insist upon a more minute and 

 elaborate statement of them for publication. In this way 

 they could do much to meet the wants of the farming com- 

 munity till we can have a system of experiment stations 

 which shall be devoted exclusively to this object. 



I have elsewhere urged the importance of establishing an 

 experiment station on the farm of the Agricultural College, 

 where there exist abundant facilities for investigation, except 

 so far as the want of money to meet the expense goes. Ex- 

 periment stations are recognized as a necessity, and sustained 

 as such, by the most enlightened governments in the world. 

 A very large part of the progress and development of German 

 agriculture, during the last quarter of a century, is due di- 

 rectly to the liberal support of such stations. They form a 

 conspicuous feature of the comprehensive system adopted by 

 the government for the development of the agricultural re- 

 sources of the empire. The results have abundantly justified 

 their organization, and placed the farming of Europe in the 

 front rank among the industries of all civilized nations. 



In 1851, more than a quarter of a century ago, the first ex- 

 periment station was founded at Moeckern, in Saxony ; and it 

 soon proved to be so useful, and secured the confidence of the 

 common people to such an extent, that the idea soon spread 



