10 



ions arose in individual experience in farming, that could not be 

 harmonized and fairly understood without the help of scientific ex- 

 perts. So they learned shortly to establish chemists' laboratories, 

 with means for testing and answering the various queries that arise 

 in a studious farmer's mind in his usual avocations ; questions of 

 feeding cattle, manuring land, and of the qualities and constituents 

 of farm produce. There are now some seventy such stations 

 established in the German States. The stations have been at work 

 industriously, disseminating the results of their experiments through 

 the press. Their publications have become voluminous and valu- 

 able, producing a new literature for the farmer, so important in the 

 eyes of the most intelligent European farmers as to have produced 

 a revolution in practical agriculture. In the matter of feeding 

 cattle especially, much benefit has been derived from exact knowl- 

 edge of the nutritive qualities of fodder. The ability to make 

 more profitable combinations of the food of animals, so as to prevent 

 waste, has alone, in the opinion of the average German farmers, 

 repaid by many times all the expenses of these stations. These 

 farmers have also learned to feed their crops, finding their account 

 in doing this accurately according to the peculiar needs of each. 

 They would no more throw down food to their plants thoughtlessly 

 by the ton, than before their animals. These stations are not forced 

 upon the people by the government, but grow out of organized 

 private enterprises with government help, and are largely supported 

 by farmers themselves. The secret of their growth, thrift, and 

 usefulness in Europe, lies in the fact that farmers have called for 

 them. 



It is found by German professors that, in making experiments 

 upon soils and plants, not a great deal of land is needed. A box 

 or barrel of soil protected by glass, if necessary can be much 

 more conveniently forced to yield its secrets, at the first trial, than 

 when exposed broadcast upon a farm. If we wish, for instance, to 

 know what changes take place in putrescent stable manure, these 

 can be determined for general application better without the use of 

 a farm ; a load or two of manure is sufficient. Field experiments 

 will prove very expensive, and at the end the results must be of a 

 sort that would vary by a change of location. The weather plays 

 the mischief sometimes with experiments out of doors. The prin- 



