302 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. [Vol. 36 



it under State laws. The American experiment station is a product 

 of American institutions and American ideals. It has no exact 

 counterpart. It has developed as a response to public demands 

 which its own work has in large measure created. Thus, while pri- 

 marily an agency for acquiring useful and accurate information, 

 the facts it has adduced have led to bestowing upon it police powers 

 for protection of the agricultural industry, and later multiplying 

 its activities in the dissemination of information, conducting propa- 

 ganda for new branches of the industry or new localities, and in 

 general serving the agricultural interests in a quite broad capacity. 



It is interesting to note that the idea of the experiment station as 

 a research institution is almost as old as the American stations. In 

 the first report of the New York State Station, for 1883, Dr. Sturte- 

 vant explained that " the object of the station is to discover, verify, 

 and disseminate ; " and he showed a very modern view of the scope 

 of each kind of activity. He said : " The leading aim of an experi- 

 mental station such as ours must be by experimental study of the 

 most careful kind to obtain knowledge of the action of the laws 

 which find application in agriculture, and to devise methods for the 

 application of the knowledge gained, in order that in practical farm- 

 ing waste of means and effort may be diminished and gain may be 

 increased, and thus profits be forwarded." 



The reason for agricultural investigation and experiment is that 

 our information may be sound, that reason may prevail, that man 

 may act and conduct his operations rationally. In a large sense it is 

 a study of the relationship of cause and effect. Wherever an effect 

 is observed there has been a cause, and this cause becomes the object 

 of study. If the purpose is to produce a certain effect, knowledge 

 of the phenomena which cause such effects or influence them must 

 be acquired before the effort becomes imore than a hit-or-miss 

 process. The scientific method is that which takes account of all the 

 forces acting. To know the law we must understand the law, and 

 this is equally true of a fact or a spray mixture or a method of 

 making cheese. 



Science, whether pure or applied, proceeds on the principlie that 

 the same causes acting under precisely the same conditions will pro- 

 duce exactly the same effects. In other words, that nature is ordered 

 by law and that there is nothing arbitrary or capricious in its opera- 

 tions. Chance plays no part, and what we observe is a lawful, 

 natural consequence of causes which we may or may not understand. 

 When we do not understand why certain events occur, it means that 

 we do not understand the forces which acted to produce the event. 

 But there is nothing fortuitous or incapable of being understood 



