304 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Doctor Armsby pointed to the popularity of the experiment sta- 

 tions as tlieir greatest danger, since it ''threatens to be their perma- 

 nent undoing as agencies of scientific researcli." He urged the 

 importance — nay, the necessity — of research as a basis for the devel- 

 opment of agricultural education and of improved practice, and 

 pointed out that the public needs to understand better than it does 

 the nature and the importance of research. " Unless science makes 

 progress, practice will mark time." Considering the provision for 

 agricultural research which the Adams x\.ct makes, he cautioned that 

 this act may " prove also to be a da}^ of judgment for the stations, in 

 that it will reveal to all men their conception of original research 

 and demonstrate whether or not they have a broad fundamental 

 grasp of the idea of investigation. Differences of opinion regard- 

 ing the application of this fund are already apparent. The stations 

 stand at the parting of the ways. Will they simply add demonstra- 

 tion to demonstration, propaganda to pro})aganda, or will they 

 grasp the opportunity to dedicate this new fund sacredly and irrev- 

 ocably to original scientific research, broadly conceived and liber- 

 ally executed ? " 



The discussion in the section on experiment station work served to 

 reenforce the general opinion that the new fund should be used for 

 investigation in a strict sense, and by illustration it helped to show 

 the distinguishing characters of such work and to bring out the dis- 

 tinction between information, facts, and knowledge. Information 

 may be of a very general nature, entirely empirical in character, and 

 bear no relation to the cause or reason. Much that we publish as a 

 result of our experiments is merely statistical information, witli no 

 attempt to trace the why or wherefore. A fact implies something 

 more definitely established, but this may not be true of its relation- 

 ships to other facts or observations. Isolated facts are often valu- 

 able when rightly applied, but it is when they are correlated into 

 knoAvledge that they have their full value and contribute definitely 

 to our understanding of principles. 



As Doctor Armsby said in his excellent paper on Problems of 

 Animal Nutrition, " one principle well founded is worth a thousand 

 facts, because it includes them all ; " and he added, referring to the 

 subject under discussion, " I can not avoid suspecting that the prin- 

 ciples which have been borrowed from foreign investigators and 

 popularized by station literature and in other ways have done quite 

 as much to help the practical feeder as our own experiments." 



The principal doubt expressed in connection with the inauguration 

 of research work was as to the attitude of the constituents of the sta- 

 tion, and the ability to suppress their impatience for results. This 

 diflicultv is believed to be in a measure overestimated. "W^iile it is 



