December 28, lt'07 



HORTICULTURE 



809 



THE MASSACHUSETTS EXPERI- 

 MENT STATION. 



Paper Read by Wm. P. Brooks, Director, 

 at Massachusetts Conference of Ru- 

 ral Progress. 



The agricultural experiment station 

 as a regularly organized and recogn- 

 ized institution in Massachusetts dates 

 from' the year 1882. The present year, 

 therefore, marks the completion of 

 twenty-five years of work and it seems 

 especially fitting that in connection 

 with this convention which has the 

 consideration of means of x'ural better- 

 ment for its prime object we should 

 both review its past and consider its 

 present and future. 



Though the experiment station in 

 this state as an organized entity took 

 its origin but twenty-five years ago, 

 any survey of the past which should 

 fail to recognize the fact that in a 

 very real sense the experiment station 

 in Amherst is as old as the college 

 would not only be glaringly incom- 

 plete, but would as well be a grave 

 injustice to the able, devoted and 

 noble men. living and dead, who un- 

 der peculair diiliculties yet labored 

 zealously for the advancement of the 

 hounds of knowledge of the laws 

 which underlie farm practice. 



No one who knows him will be sur- 

 prised to learn that in this work our 

 dear old Dr. Goessmann took a most 

 prominent part. To mention even all 

 the subjects which engaged his atten- 

 tion and upon which he wrote and 

 talked instructively would occupy a 

 very large share of my allotted time. 

 Importance of Dr. Goessmann's Work. 

 In these days when the manufacture 

 of sugar from the beet has become an 

 established and rapidly growing indus- 

 try in many parts of the United 

 States, it is often forgotten to whose 

 pioneer labors we have been so largely 

 indebted. From his very earliest con- 

 nection with the College we find Dr. 

 Goessmann experimenting with the 

 sugar beet and studying the question 

 as to the possibility of a profitable 

 beet sugar industry in this country. 

 From 1870 to 1880 he was especially 

 active in this direction and his pub- 

 lished reports and papers were numer- 

 ous. While the results of his investi- 

 gations led Dr. Goessmann to strongly 

 advocate the beet sugar industry In 

 certain sections of the country and un- 

 d»r the proper conditions, his discus- 

 sions of the subject were always char- 

 acterized by careful and temperate 

 statements; and numerous early fail- 

 ures would have been avoided had the 

 managers of the new undertakings 

 more fully accepted Dr. Goessmann's 

 conclusions. 



Of more general importance to the 

 country at large was Dr. Goessmann's 

 work in relation to fertilizers. He de- 

 termined the manurial value of a large 

 number of refuse substances and by- 

 products, and pointed out better meth- 

 ods->of conserving and using not only 

 these but home-made manures and 

 recognized fertilizers as well. To him 

 also belongs the honor of having sug- 

 gested and taken the most important 

 part in the passage of the first law 

 providing for fertilizer control passed 

 in the United States. It is not ex- 

 travagant to say that this law brought 

 order out of chaos and that with its 

 subsequent amendments it has been 

 worth untold sums to the farmers in 



the protection against fraud which it 

 has afforded, while so wisely was it 

 shaped and administered that it has 

 almost equally served the interests of 

 the honest manufacturers and dealers. 

 Upon the Massachusetts fertilizer 

 laws have been modeled the laws in 

 very many of the states, so that in 

 this particular direction. Dr. Goess- 

 mann's influence has been felt all over 

 the country. 



Among other important investiga- 

 tions conducted by Dr. Goessmann 

 prior to the organization of the ex- 

 periment station, should be mention- 

 ed: his studies as to the effects of 

 special fertilization upon the composi- 

 tion of fruits; his determination of the 

 effects of girdling upon the quality of 

 grapes; his recognition of the possible 

 relation of fertilizers to certain plant 

 diseases; his work in connection with 

 the reclamation of the Green River 

 Salt Marsh, in Marshfield; his deter- 

 mination of some of the chemical 

 changes taking place in ensilage and 

 his chemical examination of sorghum 

 and its products. He was associated 

 with Stockbridge in the investigations 

 which led up to the theory of special 

 fertilization which bears the name of 

 the latter and in the study of the re- 

 sults of fertilizer application by means 

 of the lysimeter. 



Prof. Stockbridge's Expereimeneta! 

 Work. 



It is peculiarly appropriate at this 

 time to recall to memory the fact that 

 Prof. Stockbridge not only contributed 

 lavishly of time, ability and physical 

 energy for the uplift of agriculture, 

 but that he gave substantial financial 

 aid as well. In 1878, he gave to the 

 College for experiments in agriculture 

 the sum of $1000. Next to Goess- 

 mann, Prof. Stockbridge undoubtedly 

 took the most prominent part in the 

 early experimental work at the Col- 

 lege. His influence upon the agricul- 

 ture of the state was great both be- 

 cause of unusual natural and acquired 

 abilities and because he was from and 

 of the closest and most sympathetic 

 touch. 



Prof. Stockbridge's experimental 

 work which led up to the perfection 

 of his system of special complete fer- 

 tilizers for all our important crops is 

 no doubt his best known accomplish- 

 ment. The idea underlying this sys- 

 tem was, I believe, taken from Ville. 

 but the elaboration and perfection of 

 the system' were based upon Prof. 

 Stockbridge's own experimental work. 

 Prof. Stockbridge, too. as long ago as 

 1880, called attention to the useful- 

 ness of frequent shallow culture as a 

 means of conserving soil moisture and 

 was thus probably the very earliest 

 to preach the "dust mulch" gospel. 

 His experiments demonstrating the 

 benefits of the "dust mulch," the 

 sources of soil moisture, and the origin 

 of dew were characterized by much 

 originality and w^ere carried out only 

 by great sacrifices of personal ease. 



President Clark's Influence. 



William S. Clark, the first active 

 president of the College, deserves also 

 to be mentioned in the survey of the 

 past. Although his work was less di- 

 rectly in touch with the farm than that 

 of Goessmann and Stockbridge. it was 

 nevertheless important and his influ- 

 ence upon others was perhaps of even 



greater importance. President Clark 

 was a man of tremendous enthusiasm 

 and energy and withal he had the 

 spirit of the investigator — the univer- 

 sity spirit. To come in contact with 

 him was an inspiration. No one can 

 estimate the value of his influence in 

 promoting throughout the institution 

 among faculty as well as students the 

 spirit of inquiry. President Clark's 

 individual work during the early sev- 

 enties showed marked originality and 

 the presentation of the results of his 

 investigations into some of the phe- 

 nomena of plant life at a meeting of 

 the State Board of Agriculture held in 

 Barre elicited the warmest encomiums 

 from Louis Agassiz, who was present, 

 and the statement that had the Massa- 

 chusetts Agricultural College done 

 nothing throughout the period of its 

 existence but produce that one paper 

 that alone would be richly worth every 

 dollar expended for the institution. 



President Clark's experiments on 

 the causes of the circulation of sap 

 in plants, in which he was assisted in 

 the device of the apparatus by Prof. 

 Peabody and in which he enlisted the 

 co-operation of a number of students, 

 contributed important facts to the 

 knowledge of that subject. He took a 

 prominent part also in the sorghum 

 experiments of the College which set- 

 tled the question as to whether Mas- 

 sachusetts should look to that plant 

 for its sugar. 



Massachusetts Early in Recognizing 

 the Needs of Agriculture. 



The history of the experiment sta- 

 tion as a regularly organized institu- 

 tion begins in 1882 when the Legisla- 

 ture framed an act establishing the 

 Massachusetts Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station. Dr. Goessmann was made 

 the first director. This oflace, by the 

 way, he continued to fill throughout 

 the entire period of the separate ex- 

 istence of this station. In thus es- 

 tablishing an agricultural experiment 

 station 'm 1882, Massachusetts recog- 

 nized the needs of agriculture some 

 six years before Congress passed the 

 Hatch Act providing tor the estab- 

 lishing of such stations in each state 

 and territory; but we had been pre- 

 ceded in such action by Connecticut, 

 New Jersey, North Carolina and New- 

 York. ' , ^ 



The Massachusetts Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station had no organic con- 

 nection with the Massachusetts Agri- 

 cultural College. The act establish- 

 ing it provided tor its independent 

 management and support. The 

 amounts appropriated were at first 

 moderate, but its usefulness was soon 

 demonstrated and the sums placed at 

 its disposal were fairly adequate. 



Very naturally the station was lo- 

 cated in Amherst, where so much ex- 

 perimental work had already been 

 done; and the needed land and build- 

 ings for a beginning were secured by 

 a lease from the College for a nominal 

 consideration. The independent ex- 

 istence of the Massachusetts or State 

 Experiment Station as it came tc be 

 called to distinguish it from the sta- 

 tion later established under act of 

 Congress continued until 1895. The 

 men most prominent in its work were 

 Goessmann, Miles, Maynard, Hum- 

 phrey and Lindsey. 



{To be Continued). 



