627 



So true is this that even in Germany, where specialties are so fully 

 cultivated, the experiment stations lind it difficult to obtain men with 

 the specific training required. At the last meeting of the Association 

 of Agricultural Experiment Stations in the German Empire, held in 

 Bremen in September, 1890, a commission was appointed, consisting of 

 Professors H. Schultze of Brunswick, H. Fresenius of Wiesbaden, J. 

 Konig of Miinster, U. Kreusler of Poppelsdorff (Bonn), and B. E. Diet- 

 zell of Augsburg, to take the matter into consideration, and to present a 

 request to the Bundesrath of the German Empire that provision be made 

 for government examination at least of chemists who are to be charged 

 with the examination of food materials. The need of a government 

 examination for chemists as station assistants is regarded as desirable 

 by the majority of German station directors, as appeared from replies to 

 circulars of inquiry sent to a large number of these officers. From the 

 discussion it appeared that the difficulty is that the ordinary training 

 of the universities and technical schools, though excellent in theoretical 

 and general chemistry, is not sufficient to prepare young men for the 

 special kinds of chemical investigation needed in the experiment sta- 

 tions. The instituting of government examination of aspirants for these 

 positions, corresponding to that required of candidates for the higher 

 scientific and educational positions in Germany generally, it was thought 

 would lead the schools to introduce and young men to follow the lines of 

 instruction and inquiry needed. 



The kinds of inquiry which our stations are undertaking in chemistry 

 are essentially similar to those in which the German stations are engaged. 

 The problems of plant and animal nutrition, of soil chemistry, and of 

 technology are fundamentally the same here as there, and as high an 

 order of talent and training is needed for their successful study in the 

 United States as in Europe. Certain it is that one of the crying needs 

 of the experiment stations in the United States is for thoroughly trained 

 investigators. 



At the same meeting of representatives of the German stations (See 

 page 524 of the present volume of the Experiment Station Eecord) 

 reports were made by committees on methods of investigation of feeding 

 stufis. At the last meeting of our Association of Official Agricultural 

 Chemists a report was made by a committee on the improvement of 

 methods of analysis of feeding stuffs, and reports were likewise made 

 upon results of co-operative inquiries during the past year. The inter- 

 esting fact is that these reports and the accompanying discussions show 

 that both these associations are coming to appreciate the need of more 

 thorough inquiry regarding the chemical constituents of the different 

 kinds of materials used for food and feeding stuffs. The Germans are, 

 however, somewhat in advance of us in that: while they are studying 

 methods of analysis as we are, they have taken more definite steps 

 toward cooperative effort in the study of the specific compounds and 

 classes of compounds occurring in special classes of feeding stuff's. 



