GERMAN AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 213 



station which is engaged in studying the problems of plant nutrition. 

 In the case of a number of stations it will be necessary to go further 

 and follow the example of the United States, where a large number of 

 the experiment stations have experimental farms on which not only the 

 problems in manuring, but also in feeding are studied on an extensive 

 scale. The writer, on his tour of the United States in 1893, became 

 convinced of the necessity and the utility of such experiment farms, 

 and as a result of his report on this subject the Prussian Government 

 provided the experiment station at Halle with an experimental farm 

 and sufficient means for its maintenance. Undoubtedly other German 

 experiment stations will be provided with such farms. The plans of 

 the writer contemplate two more such farms in connection with the 

 Halle station. As the first one is on a humus loam soil, especially 

 adapted to the growth of sugar beets, it is planned to have one on a 

 sandy soil and a third on a heavy clay soil. 



It will not be necessary for all the experiment stations to have such 

 farms, but the establishment of a number of them in regions of Ger- 

 many having different climatic and soil conditions will undoubtedly 

 be necessary to test various scientific questions in a practical way. 



These experimental farms wdl in no way render the cooperation of 

 the practical farmer superfluous, but they will be used for testing in a 

 preliminary way and excluding such experiments as it is apparent 

 would be unprofitable for the practice. The experimental farms will 

 be a connecting link between science and practice and will save the 

 farmers the expense of unprofitable experiments. On these experi- 

 mental farms will be studied not only the action of artificial fertilizers, 

 but also the important questions connected with the production and 

 management of barnyard manure, as stated above. Furthermore the 

 large number of new varieties of agricultural plants which make their 

 appearance every year, often with extravagant claims for them, must 

 be studied and those which prove valuable for practice indicated. In 

 addition the farms will furnish especially an opportunity for practical 

 experiments in feeding, in connection with which experiments in the 

 production of barnyard manure can be carried on. 



Although cooperative field experiments with practical farmers present 

 many difficulties, the carrying on of feeding experiments under such 

 conditions is far more difficult, and farmers usually have not the neces- 

 sary experience or facilities for conducting feeding experiments which 

 are of any use. The experimental farms can relieve the practical farmer 

 of this work entirely. They can reach conclusive results much sooner, 

 because the results of feeding experiments are far less dependent upon 

 outside conditions than those of fertilizer experiments; and with the 

 cooperation of the experiment stations in this line many results of prac- 

 tical value to agriculture may be expected. 



The director of an experiment station may always profitably undertake 

 to induce the farmers of his district to take up experiments of all 



