EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol 2. NOVEMBER, 1890. No. 4. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Among the recent foreign publications received is a report* to the 

 Austrian Minister of Agriculture by Dr. Martin Wilckeus, professor in 

 the School of Agriculture {Eochschule fur Bodenlmltur) at Vienna, on 

 the observations made in a tour in the United States and Canada from 

 March to November, 1890, to investigate their agriculture. With this 

 end in view he visited seventeen agricultural colleges and twenty ex- 

 l)eriment stations, besides numerous farms, agricultural exhibitions, 

 manufactories of agricultural implements, etc. It is evident that Pro- 

 fessor Wilckens entered upon his task with a willingness to see the de- 

 sirable features in the agricultural systems and institutions of America. 

 He has discovered much which he deems worthy of the highest com- 

 mendation, and in some instances of imitation. In comjiaring the con- 

 ditions existing in the United States and in Europe, the author calls at- 

 tention to the greater dignity of manual labor in America, to the higher 

 intelligence and better social position of the common farmer here, and 

 to the close relations existing between our farmers and the scientific 

 world. '' One of the most striking illustrations of this," he says, " is 

 the work of the United States experiment stations. The scientific 

 workers of these stations * * * use every effort to make their re- 

 searches intelligible to all, and to draw conclusions from the results 

 of such work that will be of practical interest and use to the common 

 farmer. For this reason the American experiment station workers 

 become the leaders and guides of the farmers, and the experimental 

 farms conducted by these State institutions are models of agricultural 

 practice. We can, then, learn much from North American agriculture, 

 and it is my hope that this communication may be instrumental in this 

 direction.*' 



The chapter on experiment stations contains an account of the estab- 

 lishment, history, organization, object, outfit, and financial resources of 

 the stations as a whole, followed by short accounts of the twenty dif- 



* Nordanierikauische Landwirtscbaft. Tubingen, 1890, pp. 292. 



139 



