its 



soiiio cases; and while we have not done successful work in the hold, we have 

 done the unsuccessful work there which has shown us that this metliod is tlic 

 one which must he adopted if success is to he attained, and wc have the <'.\aiiii)lc 

 of the work Doctor Hopkins has done to show that success is witliin reach alou;; 

 this other line. We also have the fact of the succ«'ss that a similar department 

 of cooi»erative experiments has secured over in Ontario. The interest that has 

 heen excited there hecause of this work has l)een to us a very jj:reat eucourajre- 

 ment. 



I think these are the main points of the work wc ;irc nndertakin;;. ami I shall 

 he extremely glad to have any criticism upon it. or any suggestions as to the 

 improvement of this work which those present may he aide to offer. 



P. A. YoDER, of Utah. I would like to ask Director Tbonie how frc(iucntly he 

 tinds it necessary to visit the outlying stations? 



C. E. Thorne. We have no fixed rule. We leave that entirely to the discre- 

 tion of the superintendent, and it varies with the character of the experiment. 

 With an experiment in variety testing I should say. si)eaking nmghly. that two 

 or three visits during the sea.son nnght he sutHcient. hut more frequent visits 

 would be better. I would like to visit them every month (hiring the season, and 

 I aim to do it. If I can not visit them personally, an assistant does and reports 

 to me. 



In the case of a feeding experiment. I should say it ought to l>o visited at least 

 as often as that. In the case of an orchard experiment, we might want to visit 

 it two or three times at short intervals at a certain period, and then it might 

 go a long time, perhaps, without inspection. The whole matter nuist he adjusted 

 with regard to the pe<-uliarities of the situation, the character of the exi)eriment, 

 and the work that is progressing there. 



(". (i. Hopkins, of Illinois. Our outside work in agronomy is, to some extent, 

 in the nature of demonstration work. For this purpose we take a long-time 

 lease. We have bought one or two tracts of land where we wanted to carry 

 on work i)articularly in soil experiments, on broken land, where the land is 

 subject to surface wiishing. and where we wanted to let some of it wash so 

 that after fifteen or twenty years it would be. possibly, almost completely 

 ruined. In a few instances of that sort we thought it best to purchase the 

 land. But in the main, if we think we can get the results in ten years, we 

 take a ten-year lease and pay a cash rent for the land and have it as absolutely 

 under our control as though we owned it. In that way we can get a field 

 frequently right out of the heart of a man's farm, that we can get the history 

 of. and we know that it practically represents the type of soil that we perhaps 

 could not get if we had to buy the land. 



The management of these fields is entirely in the hands of the experiment 

 station. We may make use <jf the labor that can be furnished by the owner of 

 the land, and if he will furnish as cheaply as anybody else will we give to him 

 the preference. We also accord him preference in the purchase of the crop. 

 .•\fter the crop is gi'own, and we take what we need for seed and other purposes, 

 if there is some to go to market the owner of the land has the privilege of 

 taking it at the market price. We do that bec^uise we feel that we ought to 

 encourage the owners of these lands by these experiments, and the feeling 

 exists still that there are crops that ought not to leave the farm. We encourage 

 that feeling by giving the owner the first privilege of taking the crop. 



We have superintendents who devote their entire time to the management 

 of the work — one man who will look after the soil of the experiment plats 

 and another who looks after the crops of the experiment fields — and they have 

 as much assistance as they need, and these men not only superintend, but do 

 a great part of the work. In the main we have assistants enough to go from 



