New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 13 



ment. It is hardly to be expected that this growth has ceased. The 

 scope and relations of experiment station work are steadily broaden- 

 ing. Agricultural practice is coming to rely more and more, as 

 time passes, on the expert information and processes that so largely 

 originate in scientific investigations and experiments, so that the 

 experiment station is now an increasingly essential factor in agri- 

 cultural affairs. While the time has come when such a view of the 

 experiment station work is so evidently correct as scarcely to need 

 a supporting argument, it is wise to summarize occasionally the 

 facts which justify a continuance, or even an increase, of the public 

 support given to the Station in New York; and thus to present a 

 concise expression of facts which are seen in their full significance 

 only by those who are entirely familiar with the growth of the Sta- 

 tion and its activities during its history. 



Establishment of the Station. — The New York Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station was established in 1880 by an act of the legislature 

 passed June 26th, constituting Chap. 592, laws of 1880. 



Geneva was selected as its location and the first director took 

 possession of the Station property on March ist, 1882. The equip- 

 ment then consisted of 125 acres of land with the usual farm build- 

 ings, fruit orchards of reasonable size, and a scientific and clerical 

 staff of five persons. Scientific laboratories and apparatus were 

 entirely wanting. 



The sum of $20,000 was made available annually for the support 

 of the Station. 



Increase in buildings and other equipment. — The buildings 

 acquired with the Station property were a mansion-house and the 

 usual outbuildings. 



The following are the buildings now situated on the Station 

 grounds : A thoroughly equipped Chemical Building containing four 

 laboratories, accommodating a large force of chemists necessary to 

 the research and inspection work carried on by the Station ; a Bio- 



