1882.] AGEICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS. 39 



AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS : WHAT THE J'ARMER 



WANTS TO KNOW, AND WHY HE 



WANTS TO KNOW IT. 



DR. E. L. STURTEVANT, SOUTH FRAMINGHAM, MASS. 



At the present time, when natural and social progress is so 

 dependent upon science in its applications, it must be recognized 

 that agricultural pursuits can offer no exception to the rule, but 

 that if progress is to be rapid and effective here, it must be 

 through the taking advantage of all the aids that science has to 

 offer. Science has indeed done much for the farmer. Chemic 

 science has made possible the fertihzer through whose assistance 

 our fields are permitted to regain their pristine productiveness, 

 and many farms of the older States ai-e held exempt from occu- 

 pation by a peasant class, the curse of historical nations. Me- 

 chanical science has furnished the mowing machine and the 

 thresher, thus enabling the sparse population of o;ir western lands 

 to accomxjlish the work which formerly required multitudes, and 

 indirectly calling into extension the iron rail which has opened 

 within our generation such immense areas to occupation, and 

 rendered possible the many happy homes where education and 

 culture add charm to effective labor. The printing press is 

 removing some of the conservatism so prominent in scattered 

 communities, and of old, identified with the circumstances of the 

 cultivator of the soil ; the telegraph keeps the farmer abreast with 

 the markets of the world: the Agricultural College offers and 

 thrusts upon our attention the opportunities for mind training in 

 the way of farm usefulness. Scarcely diS act of the home or field 

 life of the farm but that is mfluenced to a greater or less extent 

 by the discoveries of science, *or but that may be favorably modi- 

 fied by a truer and juster conception of what science offers to the 

 trained intellect and trained hand. 



What then is this science which has done and which promises 

 so much ? It is the formulation into a name of the practice of a 

 method, whereby accuracy leads to further accuracy, and verifica- 

 tion is possible at every stage of the process pursued. Science is 

 knowing, and more; it is methodical and verifiable knowing; it is 

 true knowledge. Its application hence becomes the wise concomi- 

 tant of the every act of man. We may have science developing 

 and completing the tools which the farmer uses, as well as those 



