WORK Win F LEED: CROPS. 
SUMMARIZED BY 
F. H. HALL. 
Work with field crops is not the corner stone nor even one of 
the main blocks that uphold the reputation of this Station. In 
later years, particularly, the problems in other lines of agriculture 
and horticulture, notably those in dairying and fruit growing, with 
their incidental demands for the knowledge and technical skill of 
chemists and bacteriologists, botanists and entomologists, have been 
deemed of more importance to the State than questions relating to 
the culture of the staple farm crops of the generations past. This 
distribution of investigational effort is undoubtedly a proper one; 
for New York has ceased to rank as a leading wheat and corn 
State; while problems in the growth of these and similar crops 
are of supreme importance in the newer states of the West and 
Northwest and are receiving attention from the stations in those 
states. New York State lands yield much greater profits when 
devoted to producing fruit, dairy products, vegetables and other 
more perishable crops for which there is an ever increasing demand 
in the nearby markets and which give greater acreage returns but 
which at the same time require more labor, better care and more 
expert management to secure the best results than do the grains. 
For these and other economic reasons the Station staff has never 
included an agronomist, and the “ farmer” or “ agriculturist ” has 
usually found his time too fully taken up with superintendence of 
labor and general operations to allow the necessary attention to be 
given to comprehensive or detailed investigations. 
In spite of these facts, considerable work has been done with 
field crops under supervision of the three Directors or their assist- 
ants, the horticulturists, chemists, botanists, bacteriologists and 
other members of the staff. Some of this work has been of high 
grade and of great practical value, and much of it, especially during 
early years of the Station’s history, was fundamental, leading to 
the development of correct methods of experimentation which have 
been of great value to the fifty or more stations established in the 
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