EARLIER YEARS 



It is quite impossible in the time allotted to go into de- 

 tails of these investigations, but one point in passing is of 

 interest as illustrating the truly scientific instinct of this man 

 as an investigator. The bulletin reporting the above experi- 

 ment states that four high-grade steers were used, altho, it is 

 noted, "usually digestion experiments are made with not more 

 than two animals and often with only one." Altho the error 

 due to "individuality" in animals in this sort of work has been 

 well recognized in these later years, it seems not to have 

 been taken into account in those days. But Doctor Hopkins' 

 keen scientific judgment, which seemed with him to be an 

 intuition, did not allow him to overlook this point. This was 

 characteristic. It was with this same scientific instinct that 

 he fortified all his work against critical attack, and it was this 

 same characteristic that enabled him to make such discrimina- 

 tive analysis of the data of others. "Presumably we should 

 accept the data of others," he was wont to say, "but we are in 

 no way bound to accept their conclusions." I well recall some 

 of these lessons from him in what might be called scientific 

 judgment how he used to point out the absurdity of carefully 

 carrying out figures to the third and fourth decimal place when 

 perhaps the error in sampling might be many times as great 

 as the difference in the figures; or of exercising undue pre- 

 cision at one point in a process when it might be offset many 

 times by some gross error at another point. 



The next work of Doctor Hopkins recorded in bulletin 

 form was an investigation of the sugar beet in Illinois, a work 

 undertaken jointly with Professor Holden. The question of 

 the production of sugar in this country thru the introduction 

 of the beet was at that time a live problem. To answer the 

 quesion for Illinois, sugar-beet seed was distributed in the 

 spring of 1897 to all sections of the state and samples from 

 the resulting crop were returned for inspection. The results 

 showed that sugar beets of acceptable quality and in profitable 

 quantity can be grown in the northern and central portions of 



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