545 



ami Kocli have so i)rof'oiiM(lly agitated tbe medical world have come 

 a.s the definite result of the most abstract researclies into the causes of 

 disease. Agriculture in this country has now an opportunity such as 

 has never before been presented. A system of experimenting has been 

 endowed with means sufficieut to enable it to work in a thoroughly 

 scientific spirit to discover the causes of the difficulties which confront 

 the farmer, and when these causes are known, to suggest methods for 

 his relief. There is, however, great danger that a demand for so-called 

 practical work will seriously hamper the stations in the proper conduct 

 of their work. Imleed, it is still possible that our stations will not be 

 able to resist the pressure upon them to poi)ularize their work by low- 

 ering its scientific character. That this may not be done, but that the 

 ])resent encouraging tendency of the stations, as a rule, to improve the 

 quality and narrow the scope of their iuv^estigations may be continued 

 and strengthened, the "model farm" idea, however disguised, should 

 be strongly resisted, and pains should be taken by the friends of agri- 

 cultural science to explain to the people the fallacy of the arguments 

 urged in behalf of this disproved theory of agricultural experimenting. 



The principle which renders it best that the station should make its 

 farm one of its instruments rather than its chief feature is in reality the 

 same as that which makes it so desirable that the stations be connected 

 with agricultural schools. The explanation of this is simple enough. 

 Plows and mowing machines are meant for the use of the farmer and 

 the field is the place to use them ; but the factory, not the farm, is the 

 l)lace to make them. The best men to manufacture them are those 

 especially trained for the purpose. The best location for a factory is 

 where facilities for communication and for the employment of help, and 

 other circumstances are most favorable for manufacturing. The knowl- 

 edge obtained by the experiment station is likewise for the benefit of 

 the farmer, but, generally speaking, it will be obtained in the largest 

 amount, of the most useful quality, and at the least cost, not on the 

 farm and by practical farmers, but in institutions provided with well- 

 equipped laboratories and trained specialists, where the best investiga- 

 tors can be secured, and where the workers will be supplied with the best 

 facilities for making experiments under conditions which they can con- 

 trol and with the libraries and association with their fellow specialists 

 which edncational institutions furnish. 



The difficulty with farm experiments is that they are so apt to be 

 inconclusive. The great objection to having a station on a farm, unless 

 it be close to a large town or an educational institution, is its isolation. 

 The farmers do not visit it and its workers are left without the intel- 

 lectual attrition which is essential for the best success. Theadvantages 

 of connecting the station and the school are manifold. The station 

 has the benefit of the ai)pliances and the associations of the school, and 

 the school, both tea(;hers and students, has the corresponding benefit 

 of contact with the station and its experimental work. 



