118 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE GEORGIA. [404] 



formation gained from them with the modifications which 

 their experience and observation teach them are necessary 

 under the change of circumstances, and succeed. The former 

 class are then pronounced failures, and their want of suc- 

 cess attributed to the fact that they learn from the books, 

 while the failure was not due to the fact that they read and 

 learn from books, but from the want of the necessary obser- 

 vation and experience to enable them to make a proper ap- 

 plication of what they learn by reading. This has been a 

 fruitful source of the prejudice against what is called in de- 

 rision "book farming." 



We need, and must have, before our agriculture will take 

 the position which its importance demands, scientific ex 

 perimental investigation at home. Our own soil must be 

 made to respond to well-directed specific inquiry as to its 

 needs ; our own plants must be required to tell by increased 

 production the kind of food and the conditions necessary 

 for their highest development ; our own stock must answer 

 by symetrical development and carcasses laden with fle-jh 

 and fat, the kinds and combinations of food necessary for 

 their comfort and increase, and the production of the great- 

 est profit to their owners ; the products of our own dairies 

 must tell in rich cream and golden butter the kind of stock 

 to keep, the most appropriate food, and the best system of 

 management both of the cows and the dairy products. 



By whom are these experiments to be conducted ? Will 

 farmers undertake them ? They sbou^d be corducted both 

 by the State and by individual farmers. The State should 

 have stations in its principal sections, the number to be de- 

 termined by general differences of soil and climate, at which 

 experiments, appropriate to each section, should be con- 

 ducted ; but a large class of experiments must be conducted 

 by farmers themselves to determine the local application of 

 principles. 



Charts should be sent out by the stations, giving not only 

 the character of experiments to be conducted by farmers, 





