602 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



A more subtle and, as we think, a more pernicious result of this ten- 

 dency has been its effect on the investigations attempted by the stations. 

 Many superficial experiments have been undertaken by the stations in 

 response to the demand of farmers for results of immediate practical 

 application. It is easy thus to give the impression that a large amount 

 of work is being done at the station when really most of it may be of 

 comparatively little value. Oftentimes experiments are tried in one 

 line for a year or two and then something else is substituted as tlie 

 popular demand shifts from time to time. As long as station workers 

 dwell chiefly on the immediate practical needs of the farmers and listen 

 only to their cries for help in this or that direction it is almost inevitable 

 that their investigations will very largely follow so called practical lines 

 and their methods of work keep dangerously close to those of the 

 farmer. The strength of the movement for the practical education of 

 the farmer, which during the past decade has been gathering head in 

 the United States with wonderful rapidity, makes it all the more neces- 

 sary that the experiment stations should carefully look into the future 

 and should inquire with more diligence every year as to the proper 

 limitations of their work. Clearly the trend of civilization is in the 

 direction of specialized agencies for the performances of particular 

 functions. It will be strange indeed if the agencies established for the 

 express purpose of advancing the boundaries of knowledge regarding 

 the science of agriculture as related to its practice can successfully 

 follow any different path from that pursued by other similar institutions. 

 How would the medical profession or even the general public regard 

 the proposition that the specialists who, in their laboratories and 

 hospitals are bearing almost the entire burden of establishing the prin- 

 ciples and methods on which the practice of medicine is now making 

 some real advance, should give up their researches for even half their 

 time and devote themselves to writing popular treatises on the causes 

 and remedies for prevalent diseases? They might thus perhaps save 

 some valuable lives which will be lost because of ignorance of the 

 present teachings of medical science, but who can not see that it is far 

 better to keep these specialists at their work of investigation and try 

 in other ways to widely disseminate the results of their researches. 



It has sometimes been argued that the stations may profitably do 

 a large amount of "demonstration" work, as distinguished from origi- 

 nal investigation. If, however, such work once engages the attention 

 of a station to any considerable extent, there is almost invariably a ten- 

 dency to allow it to improperly encroach on the time and energy of 

 station workers. It is so much easier to make a fair show in field, 

 stable, or laboratory by doing over again what somebody else has 

 taught us how to do well than to study, and plan, and toil to gain new 

 truth. Demonstration of old truths belongs to the college and other 

 educational agencies. It should never be more than an incident in the 

 work of an experiment station. When our people are ready to sup- 

 ply the funds to maintain "demonstration fields," as is done in France 



