[26] 



ft Agricultural Colleges, at Chicago, in 1871, a special committee was 

 appointed to memorialize Congress and the State Legislatures on the 

 importance of establishing numerous separate experimental stations 

 in the United States. 



In this very direction, a wide field of usefulness is open to our agri 

 cultural associations. Even with means much more ample than are 

 likely to be at the command of our State Agricultural College, it can 

 perform the duties of an experimental station to a limited extent only, 

 because it -is in but one place. Its proper province is mainly, in my view, 

 to determine questions of a general character, and also such local ones 

 as its location enables it to act on intelligently and successfully. But 

 wherever located, it cannot possibly test experimentally, questions de 

 pendent upon local peculiarities of soil and climate other than its own ; 

 nor even, without great expense, such questions as those concerning the 

 practical value of our natural fertilizers, marls, greensands, limestones, 

 etc.; whose transportation in adequate quantities would be cumhroni. 

 And then their efficacy would not, after all, be validiy tested, since the 

 experience gained might, in many cases, not be at all applicable to the 

 soils of the districts chiefly interested. 



CO-OPERATION BETWEEN THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES AND 



SOCIETIES. 



Now, it would be perfectly easy for local agricultural associations to 

 carry out such experiments as these, for which the data, suggestions as 

 to the mode of conducting, and analyses or other scientific work re 

 quired in their course, would be furnished by the central establishment 

 Oxford ; which is in possession of the specimens and field notes 

 ving minute details as to every portion of the State visited. And 

 .where examinations had not, in the first instance, been sufficiently 

 minute, or new questions had turned up: it would be the business of 

 the same office to have such supplementary examination made, at the 

 suggestion of agricultural societies. On the other hand, the pupils of 

 the agricultural department would carry with them to all portions of 

 the State, and to the societies of which they would become leading 

 members, a detailed knowledge of the results obtained by the Agri 

 cultural Survey regarding the resources of their section suggestions as 

 to important experiments based on such results ; and would be fore 

 most in detecting errors or omissions. They would be pre-eminently 

 qualified to conduct or direct experiments, and report the results for 

 discussion to the society as well as to the central office at the State 

 University. 



