706 EXPERIMENT STATION KECOKD. 



of huiiiaii labor and team labor, systems of cost accounting, the 

 efficiency of cooperative associations and other organizations, con- 

 ducting agricultural surveys, etc. They are attempting to apply 

 scientific management and the principles of economics in agricul- 

 ture, not as incidental to other investigations but as a primary 

 undertaking. This Avork is becoming systematized and methods for 

 it are being developed rapidly. 



As a basis for the formulation of an economic system it is often 

 necessary to ascertain the conditions and farm practices that actually 

 exist, the cost of production under varjdng farm conditions and 

 methods, and the business aspects of various systems of farming. 

 But such studies as an end in themselves have not commonly been 

 considered within the special field of the experiment station. In 

 connection with their experiments the stations have often found it 

 necessary to take account of actual farm practice, good and bad. and 

 to subject it to the test of experiment. But the gathering of farm 

 data has been done as an incident to its studies and not as an end 

 in itself. 



The idea of the experiment station is opposed to the latter his- 

 torically. Until the experimental method Avas applied, science and 

 practice, in agriculture and elsewhere, advanced by a study of 

 things as thej'' were found in nature or had developed through the 

 changes of time and also upon the basis of experience. The experi- 

 ment station movement carried tlie idea of going outside of human 

 experience in developing understanding and testing methods of 

 practice, by introducing science into agriculture through the experi- 

 mental method. 



In this sense the station work has been thought of as experimental 

 inquiry, rather than economic inquiry: and because the latter em- 

 ployed the statistical method quite largely it has been looked upon as 

 in a somewhat different field of activity. Some forms of it, like farm 

 management studies, have been a combination of investigation and 

 of teaching or demonstration from the farmers' own experience. It is 

 fully recognized that economic inquiry, like experimental inquiry, 

 may result in new Icnowledge, often representing a general truth, if 

 it does not stop at the compilation stage. And, on the other hand, it 

 is quite possible for the stations to conduct studies which will suiij^le- 

 ment these statistical surveys, and will furnish a basis for the formu- 

 lation of broader truths or generalizations. 



Manj'' of the strictly economic studies in the past have dealt with 

 very broad questions, difficult to formulate with exactness, and diffi- 

 cut to support entirely on reliable data. The matter of securing the 

 data has often been a large undertaking, and its collection has ab- 

 sorbed much of the economist's time. The lack of reliable and com- 



