782 



HORTICULTURE 



December 14, 1907 



THE BROAD OUTLOOK OF THE 



AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT 



STATIONS. 



A Paper by Dr. A. C. Ti-ue. Director, U. 

 S. Office of Experiment Stations. 



iCofttiniii-d front Pngf yto) 



Original Researches. 



The broad organization of our ex- 

 periment stations has enabled them to 

 perform a considerable variety of 

 functions. In a general way the 

 wcrk of the stations in the United 

 States may be grouped under the fol- 

 lowing heads: (1) Original research, 

 (2) verification and demonstration ex- 

 periments, (3) studies of natural agri- 

 cultural conditions and resources, (4) 

 inspection and control work, and (5) 

 dissemination of information. 



The original researches of our sta- 

 tions have been along almost all lines 

 of the science of agriculture. They 

 have included studies with reference 

 to the improvement of methods of re- 

 search, devising new apparatus and 

 appliances, the relation of scientific 

 principles to the science and practice 

 of agriculture, the working out of new 

 practical applications on the basis of 

 well-known facts and principles, or the 

 solution of special problems. Recent- 

 ly the opportunities of our stations to 

 do original research have been great- 

 ly broadened by the passage of the 

 Act of Congress of March 16, 1906, 

 known as the Adams Act. This Act 

 gives to each station in the several 

 States $.5000 for the fiscal year 1906, 

 and $2000 additional for the 5 suc- 

 ceeding years, after which each sta- 

 tion is to receive annually the sum of 

 $15,000, or $720,000 for the 48 States 

 and Territories, included in the conti- 

 nental United States. The money 

 must be spent exclusively for original 

 research in agriculture. 



In reporting on the first year's op- 

 erations of this Act the Office of Ex- 

 periment Stations states that "it 

 marks a distinct era in the life of the 

 stations and agricultural investiga- 

 tion. It has served to draw attention 

 sharply to a consideration of what 

 constitutes scientific research in agri- 

 culture as distinguished from the mere 

 acquisition of superficial knowledge. 

 The result has been a general uplift in 

 the conception of the duties and re- 

 sponsibilities of the stations and a 

 stimulation of activity in all the more 

 advanced lines of investigation. It is 

 evident that a new regime has been 

 entered upon in the conduct of the 

 stations, which will make them con- 

 tribute in a large way to the unfold- 

 ing of the principles upon which agri- 

 cultural development and practice 

 rest." 



Verification and Demonstration Experi- 

 ments. 



The verification and demonstration 

 experiments have been partly carried 

 on at the stations, more especially on 

 the farms under their control, and 

 partly by experiments in different lo- 

 calities, largely with the co-operation 

 of farmers. Of this character have 

 been very many of the experiments 

 with fertilizers, thousands of which 

 have been carried on in the States 

 east of the Mississippi river. A very 

 large number of practical tests of dif- 

 ferent field crops and horticultural 

 plants have also been made on a com- 

 mercial scale after the stations had 



determined in a small way the adap- 

 tability of these varieties to the re- 

 gions in which they are located. Many 

 experiments in the feeding of animals 

 and in dairying are of this character. 

 Many means for the repression of in- 

 sect pests and the diseases of plants 

 and animals have been tried over and 

 over again at the stations and among 

 the farmers until they have become 

 a part of regular farm practice. So 

 popular have the demonstration fea- 

 tures of station work become that 

 many State legislatures have in re- 

 cent years made relatively large ap- 

 propriations for such work. 



Studies of Conditions and Resources. 



The station studies of natural agri- 

 cultural conditions and resources have 

 included such things as systematic 

 meteorological observations, soil and 

 crop surveys, studies of water supply, 

 botanical surveys, determinations of 

 the regions suitable to special crops, 

 e. g.. sugar beets, and investigations 

 of marl and phosphate deposits. The 

 stations in nearly 40 States and Terri- 

 tories are performing inspection ser- 

 vice relating to fertilizers, feeding 

 stuffs, foods, diseases of plants and 

 animals, insect pests, fungicides and 

 insecticides, dairy apparatus, etc. 

 Taken together this constitutes a 

 large item of station work and Its 

 practical results have been very im- 

 portant. AH this work is provided 

 for by State funds. 



Dissemination of Information. 



As agencies for the dissemination of 

 information the American stations 

 published in 1906, 418 circulars and 

 bulletins and 45 annual reports, ag- 

 gregating 17,501 pages, and amounting 

 to 3,000.000 copies. In addition, a 

 large number of more fugitive pub- 

 lications were issued and numerous 

 articles prepared for the agricultural 

 papers and other journals. The cor- 

 respondence of the stations is enor- 

 mous and covers the whole range of 

 agricultural subjects. Their regular 

 mailing lists contain over 758,000 ad- 

 dresses. Thousands of addresses are 

 annually delivtred by station officers 

 at farmers' Institutes and other ag- 

 ricultural meetings, numerous exhibits 

 are made at county, State and Nation- 

 al fairs and expositions, and special 

 railroad trains have been used in a 

 number of States to carry up-to-date 

 information to farmers. 



The most important and the broad- 

 est outlook of the experiment stations 

 is along educational lines. Already 

 the work of the stations has created 

 an entirely new agricultural literature 

 and the materials are constantly ac- 

 cumulated by which this can be ex- 

 tended and improved. The stations 

 have also laid the foundations for a 

 sound agricultural pedagogy and made 

 possible the formulation of effective 

 and satisfactory courses of instruction 

 in agriculture for schools of all 

 grades. They must ever supply the 

 new materials by which these courses 

 can be strengthened and improved. 

 Making Agriculture a Progressive In- 

 dustry. 



But their work has a far more fun- 

 damental and far reaching purpose — 

 namely to make agriculture a pro- 

 gressive industry and the masses of 

 agricultural workers progressive men. 

 Great systems of education may be 



elaborated and set in operation so as 

 to bring within their control multi- 

 tudes of men. But these systems may 

 produce stagnation of thought and ac- 

 tivity or crystallize the views of a cer- 

 tain epoch and make them the stan- 

 dards of national or even racial life 

 for an indefinite period. Such has 

 been the effect of the Chinese system 

 of education and the Mohammedan 

 study of the Koran, as seen in the 

 great universities and schools of the 

 Orient. And practically the same 

 thing has been seen in that system of 

 education of the farmer which has 

 prevailed hitherto in every land and 

 age. A system based on traditionary 

 lore handed down from father and 

 son, and from age to age. Hence 

 the outlook of agricultural industries 

 and men has been universally almost 

 wholly toward the past and, speaking 

 broadly, the agricultural masses have 

 been a constant drag on the progress 

 of civilization. 



But when there is put back of any 

 system of education in the school or 

 in practical life, the spirit of dis- 

 CQi'iiry, the quest for new truth, pro- 

 gress is not only possible, but it is 

 sure to come. A hopeful spirit takes 

 th<' place of discouragement or dull 

 content The outlook of the student 

 or the worker is turned toward the 

 future. Expansion of thought and of 

 activity is bound to come with every 

 new idea or principle revealed through 

 experiment and research. 



Modern science has introduced the 

 ferment of truth-seeking in the nat- 

 ural world into many branches of hu- 

 man activity and in these latter days 

 the agricultural experiment stations, 

 as the agents of science for the spe- 

 cial benefit of agriculture, have 

 brought it in large measure into the 

 rural communities. It has begun to 

 work and in time it will leaven the 

 whole lump. 



An Example from Real Life. 

 Let me cite an example from real 

 life. I know a successful New Eng- 

 land farmer more than 80 years of 

 age. He has passed through all the 

 vicissitudes attending the development 

 of agriculture in this country. He 

 was reared in a small rural commun- 

 ity where single families on farms 

 of 40 or 50 acres did all the work with 

 the aid of horses and oxen and simple 

 hand tools. They not only raised the 

 crops and animals necessary to give 

 them food and clothing, but also spun 

 some and wove the flax and wool and 

 sowed the resulting fabrics into 

 clothes, tanned the hides of their cat- 

 tle into leather and made it into shoes, 

 wrought as carpenters and black- 

 smiths to make tools and vehicles, and 

 in a word were almost entirely self- 

 supporting. He has witnessed the 

 gradual introduction of factory-made 

 articles which drove numerous indus- 

 tries off the farm and the development 

 and use of farm machinery until hand 

 tools are used in only a small part of 

 the farm operations. He has seen 

 these new conditions and the opening 

 up of vast areas of fertile land further 

 West break up the old rural communi- 

 ties of New England and greatly in- 

 crease the area of land necessary for 

 a family's support. He has heard all 

 the foolish talk about abandoned 

 farms, as if hard-headed practical men 

 could ever again be expected to try 



