EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. 2. MAY, 1891. No. 10. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



A not uncommon idea of an experiment station is that of a good-sized 

 farm, of which a considerable portion is divided into experimental 

 fields for testing the effects of tillage, the action of manures, and the 

 growth of crops, while the rest is used to raise fodder for animals under 

 experiment. There are reall}^ three views as to the proper function 

 of the experiment station farm. One, which may be called the " model 

 farm " idea, makes it a means for demonstrating to the public the ways 

 in which farming may be i)roperly and successfully carried on. A 

 second, rightfully rejecting the first as opposed to the true purpose of 

 an institution for experimental inquiry, makes the farm the chief 

 instrument for that inquiry and regards the laboratory and the green- 

 house as more or less important accessories. A third view, and the one 

 to which experience has very uniformly led, recognizes the facts that 

 the station is useful in proportion as it discovers the laws that underlie 

 the right practice of farming ; that to find out these laws requires 

 abstract research, such as is best made in the laboratory, the greenhouse, 

 and the cx[)erimental stable j and that the farm instead of being the 

 chief feature of the station, should in nearly all cases be only one of the 

 accessories. 



In some quarters there is the disposition to revive the idea that an 

 experiment station should be very largely a model or at least an experi- 

 mental farm. The argument is that in order to reach the practical 

 results which the farmer needs, the work of the station must conform 

 closely to the conditions which exist on the ordinary farm ; that the 

 processes of the laboratory and the experimental plat do not take into 

 account the peculiar conditions which the practical farmer has to meet 

 in the raising of his crops and the management of his stock; and that 

 therefore the station niu: t conduct its experiments on a scale suffi- 

 ciently large to make sure that its methods will meet the test of actual 

 farm practice ; in other words, that the station should make farming on a 

 somewhat extensive scale a prominent feature of its operations. But 



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