158 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



THURSDAY . EVENING. 



THE MICHIGAN EXPERIMENT STATION. 



PROF. C. D. SMITH, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



The Michigan Experiment Station, which is connected with the Agri- 

 cultural College, is my topic. Under the federal act granting an appro- 

 priation of $15,000 per year for the stations, it is our duty to perform 

 experiments of interest to agriculture, our duty to publish reports of 

 those experiments, and our duty to send those reports, free, to every citi- 

 zen of the State who applies for one. 



On the other side of this same subject, let me say that you also have 

 certain duties to perform in connection therewith. One is, to receive 

 these bulletins, to send us your name, that we may put you on the per- 

 manent mailing list. Then it is your duty to read the bulletins, and to 

 write to us any suggestions, criticisms, or interesting points you may 

 know, any special application of the matter contained in the bulletin, any 

 point we may have missed, or anything of that kind, whereby the scien- 

 tific appliances at the College may be useful to you. And it is your fur- 

 ther duty to come down occasionally to see us. 



Now what sort of experiments do we try? In the first place, all our 

 experiments relate either directly or indirectly to agriculture. Don't 

 let the idea enter your head that we try exjjeriments on purely scientific 

 lines, not related to agriculture. We have, for instance, a chemical 

 department. When one hears the name chemical, the idea at once pre- 

 sents itself that there is something the ordinary man cannot understand. 

 When you have heard Dr. Kedzie tomorrow, you will see that though he 

 has one of the brightest minds in the State, he can adapt himself to your 

 understanding and mine, who are not chemists. If he were to exploit 

 himself in learned formulae, it would not do any good. He has taken up 

 such questions as wheat — which he is going to discuss tomorrow — the 

 kind of wheat we should raise in this State, and why. That is what the 

 chemical department is doing, such work as that; it is scientific, but what 

 is scientific? Every man who sees an operation of nature, watches it, 

 and draws an inference from it, is a scientific man. Don't get the idea 

 that a scientific man is one who has graduated from a college; a scientific 

 man is one who observes correctly and draws conclusions from what he 

 sees. Every farmer is a scientific man, if he thinks about what he is 

 doing. 



The chemical department takes up the subject of soil chemistry and 

 soil physics, and we will issue bulletins in relation to this topic that will 

 be of interest to every farmer, and every person agriculturally inclined, 

 in the State. 



Then we have a horticultural department. It is nonsense for me to 

 stand up here and talk about these things ; there is every one here knows 



