3G4 EXPERIMENT STATION EECORD. 



There is often, unfortunately, what appears to be a jealousy among 

 the station workers in diiferent lines which i)revents their joining in 

 carrying on investigations. One fears that by accepting the cooperation 

 of another he will sacrifice some of his dignity or credit for the work. 

 But, on the contrary, a thorough investigation, worked u]) from the 

 different sides, is a greater credit to each one participating in it, and 

 contributes more to the reputation of the workers and the station than 

 numbers of one-sided experiments of indifferent value. Working 

 together, the dairyman, chemist, and bacteriologist can conduct experi- 

 ments which would be impossible for either one working single-handed, 

 and the results need be none the less practicnl in their application. 



It is believed also that there is ojiportunity for much to be done 

 through cooperation between stations located in the same region and 

 where the same general conditions prevail. Cooperative feeding experi- 

 ments with cows have been successfully carried on in Denmark for a 

 series of years, the cooperators being the owners of large estates, and the 

 whole experiment being under a general direction. There are many 

 questions which might with advantage be studied by a number of 

 stations in unison and on a common plan. The results would in the 

 end be more conclusive and of wider application, and the tendency 

 would be toward more thorough work. As a matter of fact, the station 

 work in dairying, as in other lines, is frequently open to the criticism of 

 having too local a cast, and this is, of course, one of the tendencies of 

 purely practical work. We have whole groups of States which are no 

 larger in area than some single States, and aside from purely local 

 questions, results obtained in one locality will generally be applicable 

 in the localities immediately adjoining. The much discussed question 

 of the applicability to our conditions of Wolft's standard for cows, and 

 its physiological accuracy, suggests itself as a theme for such cooijer- 

 ative work. 



As to the character of the work of a station in general, this will nat- 

 urally depend to a considerable extent on the status of dairying in the 

 State and its probable development. Including dairy farming under the 

 general scope of this paper, there is still room in most States, especially 

 those where dairying is comparatively new, for work on forage crops 

 adapted to dairy farms, systems of rotation for this purj^ose, tlie sup- 

 plying of green crops, the storage of green food, and the value of local 

 waste products. In the Southern States, where dairying has onl^- 

 recently been taken up, the problems of this sort are numerous. Tlie 

 value of corn stover for these States has been only imperfectly studied, 

 under a few conditions, and with somewhat conliicting results. Here 

 also there is opportunity for raising the standard of the product of the 

 farm dairy. The proper use of cotton seed and cotton-seed meal is but 

 imperfectly understood, and its effect on the butter when fed in differ- 

 ent ways and differently prepared has not been sufficiently studied. 

 The method of butter making commonly practiced in the South, of 



