102 EXPERIMENT STATION EECORD. 



applied. This is not to decry its value, rightly applied, but to ex- 

 plain its limitations and its inadequacy in the present movement. 



Man has had more extended and varied experience in agriculture 

 than in any other vocation or branch of industry. If alone it were a 

 competent basis for progress farming should be the most enlightened 

 and advanced of all the arts. But a comparison of the writings of 

 Virgil's time with those of the Middle Ages and even of the fifteenth 

 and sixteenth centuries shows how slow and inadequate it was. After 

 many many centuries of experience and theorizing man had no idea 

 of the simplest fundamental facts, as to how phints grow and feed, or 

 what their real relations are to the soil and the air. As recently as 

 a hundred years ago the source of the predominating constituent of 

 plants, carbon, which forms the whole structure and largely the re- 

 serve material of the plants, was unknown. It had been thought to 

 come from the humus of the soil, and de Saussure's theory (in 1804) 

 that it came from the carbonic acid of the air was not accepted. The 

 experimental method brought a new means of approach, a new 

 method of acquiring knowledge by going outside of human experi- 

 ence, and by putting to the test facts and theories of both practical 

 and scientific importance. It gave a constructive and dependable 

 basis for advancement. 



Now as then, practical experience unaided will prove inadequate 

 in advancing the art and the theory of agriculture and in teaching it 

 through extension methods. Xow, as in former times, intelligent ad- 

 vancement and teaching must rest on a more solid basis of estab- 

 lished fact, and must take account of the reason or exphination of 

 conclusions and theories. This has been the great contribution of 

 the experiment stations — ^to propagate an attitude demanding proof 

 and understanding of all prescribed loiowledge, as well as in pro- 

 viding a method and a body of information. 



The utilization of the work of the experiment stations in promoting 

 agricultural advancement and improving farm practice has from the 

 very first loomed large on the horizon of the station workers. It has 

 given direction to the stations' activities and few workers have failed 

 to catch the spirit of the broad intent. Practical utility, or the hope 

 of directly beneficial results, has not only quite largely shaped the 

 character of the work but under the ze<al of its stimulus station in- 

 yestigators have made every attempt to translate as early as possible 

 the results of their laboratory findings into methods of practice, and 

 by every available means to bring them to the attention of practical 

 men. 



The energy and effort put into this dissemination and introduc- 

 tion of the station findings, and the agiiculturnl renaissance which 

 has come as a result of it, are not forgotten at this time when a large 



