EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. XIV OcTOHEK. VM\2. No. 2. 



The experiment station at Mockern, (lerman}', the first of its kind 

 in the world, celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its establishment 

 September 20. The occasion was one for general congratulation, 

 and is of special interest to all friends of the experiment station 

 enterprise. The date selected for the exercises was that of the annual 

 meeting of the German Association of Experiment Stations, which was 

 held this 3'ear at Leipzig, onl}- a few miles distant from Mockern. 

 Prof. Oskar Kellner, the present director of the station, had prepared 

 a Festschrift^ or historical address, which was printed in advance, 

 revicnving the incidents in the establishment of the station, its gradual 

 development and present status, and summarizing its principal lines 

 of work. This is a bound volume of over two hundred pages, with sev- 

 eral plates showing the station buildings. Congratulator\' addresses 

 were made l)}' meml)ers of the association, followed l>y a banquet. 



The Mockern Experiment Station has had many admirers in this 

 country, and especially in the early days of the experiment station 

 movement it was much written about. It is therefore one of the best 

 known of the German stations. As it marks the beginning of the 

 experuuent station as a public institution, the history of its establish- 

 ment is of unusual interest. 



Lawes and Gilbert in England and Boussingault in France had for 

 several 3' ears carried on systematic and continuous field experiments, 

 supplemented by laboratory work; and Liebig had, through his field 

 and laboratory studies and his generalizations in science, aroused much 

 interest m the fundamental principles imderlying plant and animal 

 nutrition. The publication of his works led to an agitation among 

 agiiculturi>ts in Saxony, which some ten years later resulted in the 

 establishment of the experiment station. A first step in this direction 

 was the providing by the Saxon government of a chair of agricultural 

 chemistry in the Forestry and Agricultural Academy at Tharand, in 

 1847. In the efl'orts to secure an experiment station which followed, 

 the leaders were Secretary Reuning, of the General Agricultural 

 Society, and Dr. Wilhelm Crusius, who was the president of the oldest 

 agricultural society in Saxon}- (the Leipzig Economic Society, founded 



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