I2 TWENTY-FIFTH AN NIVERSARY REport. 
are thinking in their minds and what the average American citizen 
wants, the scientific method is the only thing that is popular, whether 
it is in agriculture or in government. (Applause.) 
NARROWING THE FIELD OF FAILURE. 
“We are constantly trying to narrow the field of failure. We 
are constantly trying to increase the opportunities for success in 
every line of knowing. Knowledge is power. I remember that 
Wendell Phillips, in one of his impassionate addresses (I do not know 
as I can quote the exact words at this moment) said something like 
this: ‘The age of bullets is over, the day of men armored in mail 
has passed, but the day of thinking men has come.’ And when the 
farmers of New York are all intelligent, thinking men in regard to 
their own particular work, and taking advantage of the results of 
experimentation and availing themselves of agricultural education, 
New York will regain the place which it once had, and which some 
years ago it lost, of being the first agricultural state in the United 
States. (Applause.) It is first to-day in many important depart- 
ments, first with reference to its dairy products, first in reference 
to hay and apples, first with reference to other matters. It is not 
first with reference to the value of farm property, but were the 
same intelligence and earnestness applied in that direction as has 
been applied in industry and engineering, it cannot fail to attain the 
supremacy. Scientific method; what is it? Why, the scientific 
method is nothing but a patient, careful, persistent pursuit of truth, 
that is all. The man who is content with anything but the truth, 
the man who will be desirous of obtaining anything that does not 
square with the verities of the situation, he is not a scientist, he 
has not the noble ambition of the scientist. The scientist is the 
man that will go through any danger and will endure any amount 
of toil and will pursue unfailing the one ambition of his life, the 
attainment of truth in his line. That is what we need regarding 
agriculture. We don’t want it in a haphazard way. It is impos- 
sible for one individual farmer in connection with his farm, to con- 
duct a variety of experiments which will enable him to know what 
the advantages of this or that particular training might be. I do not 
know whether this is true, or not, but I should assume, from ac- 
quaintance with other lines that if the farmers of the State had 
pursued many of the experiments of our friend, Dr. Jordan, for 
the last few years, they might have been wiped out before they got 
through with the experiments. You have got to experiment and 
