102 EXPERIMENT STATION EECORD. 



in Europe-, entered with enthusiasm into the movement ah-eady on 

 foot to establish similar institutions in the United States. On De- 

 cember 17, 1873, at the winter meeting of the Connecticut State 

 Board of Agriculture, Professors Johnson and Atwater urged the 

 establishment of a station in Connecticut after the European j^attern. 

 A long period of agitation followed. The project had many warm 

 friends, but the great mass of the farmers took little interest in the 

 enterprise. When it became apj^aient that it could not otherwise 

 succeed, Mr. Judd oiiered on his own part $1,000 to begin the under- 

 taking, and on the part of the trustees of AVesleyan University the 

 free use of a cliemical laboratory. These offers were made on con- 

 dition that the State legislature should appropriate $2,000 per annum 

 for two years for the work of the station. An act making this appro- 

 priation was unanimously passed July 2, 1875. Professor Atwater 

 was made director and the first State agricultural experiment sta- 

 tion began operations in October of that year. At the end of the two 

 years provided for in the original bill the station was reorganized 

 under the direct control of the State and permanently located in 

 New Haven. 



Without douljt this action of the State was a great discouragement 

 to Professor Atwater, but with his usual persistency he contniued to 

 labor earnestly in the cause of agricultural science. He organized 

 and suj^erintended an extensive series of field experiments w^ith 

 fertilizers, accounts of which were j^rinted in the annual reports of 

 the Connecticut State Board of Agriculture for 1877 and suc- 

 ceeding years. He also prepared a series of about seventy articles 

 on science applied to farming, which were published in the American 

 AgriculUnist from 1875 to 1881. 



As agricultural experiment stations were established one after 

 another in rapid succession in ditferent States he ke2:)t in touch with 

 the leaders in this movement, and when it assumed a national aspect 

 and Congress was asked to enact a general law granting funds for 

 stations in all the States he was among the foremost of the repre- 

 sentative leaders of agricultural advancement who urged the adoption 

 of this measure. 



The report made in 1887 bj^' a committee of the Association of 

 American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, of which 

 Professor Atwater was chairman, is notable as showing his attitude 

 regarding the character of the work the stations should undertake: 



" It is essential that they recognize the immediate demand for 

 things immediately useful ; that they find what questions are of 

 direct practical importance and give such questions an amount of 

 early attention which under other circumstances might be dispro- 

 portionate. But it is vitally important that the highest scientific 

 ideal be maintained and every effort be made toward its realization. 



