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your work in discovering it was. of how to tal^o advantage of that knowledge 

 and to make money from it on the farm. Take Mr. Detrick, for instance, 

 about whom so much has been written. There was a man who had worked 

 out the important problem of how to utilize scientitic knowledge on the farm ; 

 and I confess that I learned more from that man in one day about the applica- 

 tion of scientific principles in farming, and the business features of farming, 

 than I had learned in two years previously. His was a phenomenal case; but 

 his was not the only one. 



Although a few years ago I felt that it was hardly fair to suy that there 

 was such a thing as agricultural science, I am now prepared to say that there 

 is such a thing as agricultural science, and to defend that ojiiiiion. Now. this 

 body of knowledge has been gathered from two sources. One is the work that 

 has been done by experiment station men. A large body of knowledge has 

 been obtained by careful scientific impiiry, and a good deal of it is classified, 

 arranged, and usable. On the other hand, we sometimes overlook the fact 

 that every farm is an experiment station, though an experiment station is 

 not and should not be a farm. But the farm must be an experiment station. 

 And every farmer in America is an experiment station man and is investi- 

 gating. It is true that he is hewing wood with a dull ax frequently, and he 

 is sawing with a broken-toothed saw ; but he gets bis log sawed in two 

 sometimes. 



Now, no small part of this thing we call agricultural science comes fi'om the 

 gathering up and sifting of the experience of the farmer. And now I want 

 to say this. Some of you experiment station men may differ with me here. 

 But you let me study cai-efully the work of one hundred farmers, and let me 

 draw my own conclusions from their experience. I would like to have their 

 conclusions, too, although I usually do not care very much for them. Still, 

 I like to get them, because they are frequently exceedingly suggestive and 

 quite frequently correct. 



You let me draw my conclusions from the experience of 100 men — if I can 

 get the facts of their experience — and I will come pretty near getting the 

 theory from their experiences, whether they had any idea of carrying on 

 experiments or not. 



I have found a number of farmers who, in the handling of barnyard manure, 

 used enough absorbent to hold all the liquid along with the solid, and who 

 have developed a system by which they carry the manure to the field and 

 spread the manure as soon as it is made — every day or every two days. Now, 

 the farmer has not carried on any scientific investigation to find out whether 

 by that practice he loses a lot of plant food, and he does not know; but, 

 gentlemen, the farmers who are doing tliat are producing the largest crops of 

 any men in the United States. 



Now, I contend that the fact that the men who were doing that, and without 

 the use of any conunercial fertilizers, are sometimes producing crops three times 

 as large as we expect a good farmer to ])ro(luce. ju'oves that that i)ractice is 

 perhaps the best i)ractice. whei-e it is feasil>le; and I have drawn that con- 

 clusion from the i»i'actice of those fanners. I may he wrong in that, biit I 

 have done it ; and 1 claim that we have gotten a large part of this thing we 

 call agricultural science from a study of farm practice. By the way, we 

 adopted at one time, and decided to call the otHce whic-h I represent by the 

 name of the office of farm practice; at the present time the major jtart of the 

 work of that office is the study of farm practice. That study is not a super- 

 ficial study, but it is a serious attenq)t to formulate important principles from 

 the experience of faiiueis. In most cases each man takes up the study of a 

 single phase of farming. In some cases the field of study is more general. 



