176 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the field, and then I would know, at the end of the year, something 

 about that to which I could attribute the good or i^oor crop. In spraying 

 trees, for instance — we read it is a good thing, and the law says we 

 must spray, and we spray the whole orchard. Up in the northern 

 country we haven't had many apples. Was it the spraying that killed 

 the apples? Down south they had a pretty good crop, I think. Did the 

 spraying make the good crop? I think we should experiment some. 

 Every fruit-man should be an experimenter. A few rows should be left 

 unspraj-ed. Then, if he has just as good crops on the corner that is not 

 sprayed as on the other, he can not attribute it to the spraying alone. We 

 do not experiment enough, either on the orchard or farm. We serve the 

 whole field or orchard alike. We want to know whether the good crop 

 is to be attributed to the mode of cultivation, or the season, or the 

 previous treatment of the ground, or heavy manuring. We should look 

 for more than one cause for every good or poor crop. As to the stations, 

 they are costing the state not one cent, and I think we are reaping, so 

 far as I know, a wide benefit. One single bulletin may be worth more to 

 the state than the whole |15,000 which the general government is good 

 enough to contribute. 



Mr. Edward Hawley: I think we are all agreed on the value of tlie 

 experiment stations. So far as I am concerned, I have received consider- 

 able instruction in reading bulletins issued by the various stations. 1 

 think they are a valuable feature. 



Mr. Comings: I think that Prof. Taft rather carried the idea that we 

 are receiving gratuitously that amount. I think the people somewhere, 

 sometime, or somehow, pay for this. 



Prof. Taft: I said there was no direct tax. It is from the sale of the 

 lands. I think we should measure the benefits of the station fully is 

 much by the results attained by those who make use of them. To be 

 useful, the advice and recommendations must be followed, and the 

 farmers must avail themselves of them. We can issue a bulletin every day 

 in the year, and can reply to letters, a hundred a day perhaps; but unless 

 use is made of the advice, in some sense, it will not do any good. We 

 are doing all we can to encourage this work of experimenting by the 

 farmers. This year we have formulated various plans for the use of 

 fertilizers on certain crops, the testing of varieties and the new kinds. 

 We have furnished seed, sending out something like 500 packages, for 

 test, seed that was grown by the college at comparatively small cost 

 (merely that of growing, often, and yet seed which could not be bought 

 for less than fifty cents or a dollar per pound from the dealers). We sent 

 out 500 packages this year, besides at least 100 varieties of trees. In 

 some cases twenty-five or fifty of a variety were placed in the hands of 

 fruitgrowers, choosing one in each county for trial, and we hope to have 

 results from these that we can publish; and we hope that the neighbors 

 of these men can obtain advice, and in some cases we hope to have the 

 ]>roducts exhibited at the county institutes. Regarding the station pay- 

 ing in dollars and cents, of course it is divided up pretty well among the 

 farmers; but during last winter we received a visit from a gentleman of 

 the state who said that the knowledge he had gained from the bulletins 

 was worth to him, last year, |1,000. He said that his orchard was badly 

 infested by a scale insect a few years ago, and he wrote to the college. 



