STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 183 



Capt. Blakeley. I would be pleased if those relating their ex- 

 perience would indicate what success they have experienced in 

 the growth of the plant as well as stating the amount produced. 

 We want to know as to the influences at work during the season, 

 and get such information as we may as to climatic influences, 

 etc. 



Mr. D. Day. Mr. President, ray experience has been about 

 like that of Mr. Porter's, only rather to the worse. The chinch 

 bugs took at least three-fourths of the cane, and in some instances 

 four-fifths, in my vicinity. There were large pieces that were 

 worth nothing; while some pieces made a good article of syrup, 

 the larger portion of the area planted was destroyed by insects. 

 I do not know how we can head off the chinch bugs; I would like 

 to have some one give a receipt for it. 



Capt. Blakeley. Continued experiments have been made to 

 solve that question, but so far, I believe, without accomplishing 

 anything very definite. 



Prof. Porter. As bearing on that subject we have emphasized 

 the necessity of continued experiment and observation to solve 

 the thousand and one problems bearing upon agriculture in all 

 its varied departments. These experiments as they are carried 

 on are at altogether too much cost. They require the continued 

 effort of years and there is too great a field of inquiry to claim 

 the attention of a single individual. This work should be de- 

 volved upon the state and nation, for the reason, in the first 

 place, that the cost is too great for any individual to assume; and 

 secondly, the work itself should be "immortal." The agents 

 who carry on the work are certainly very mortal. Men com- 

 mence these lines of experimentation and they go on with a very 

 great enthusiasm for twenty or thirty years, and then death 

 strikes them and they drop, and in ninety-nine cases out of a 

 hundred the work dies with the man. We should put this ex- 

 perimental work in such a shape that when the individual having 

 it in charge drops out, his successor in the same line shall step in, 

 take up and carry forward the work and not be required to begin 

 de novo. He should commence where his predecessor left off, roll 

 the ball along for twenty-five years, more or less, and then let 

 another go on with it for twenty-five more, and so on. This can 

 only be accomplished by having such work carried on by the 

 state or by the nation. 



i^ow, in this line of experimental work there has been progress 

 made every year since 1839, when Boussingault in France, esta- 



