STATi; POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. Ol 



resources of science to improve the practice of agriculture and 

 have estabhshed Agricultural Experiment Stations. 



Established for the benefit of agriculture, and hence of the 

 community at large, the most of them connected with educational 

 Institutions, where experience shows their work is most suc- 

 cessful, these stations seek to -answer the questions which agri- 

 cultural practice is asking as to the tillage of the soil ; the nature 

 and kind of manures ; the culture of crops ; the food and nutri- 

 tion of domestic animals and man ; the production of milk, but- 

 ter and cheese ; the diseases of plants and animals, and in gen- 

 eral whatever the agriculturist needs to know and whatever 

 experimental science can discover. 



The Station makes experiments in the laboratory, greenhouses, 

 garden, orchard, field, stable and dairy. It is probably safe to 

 say that there are few subjects which the farmer has to deal with 

 in the tillage of the soil, the use of manures, the cultivation of his 

 crops, the care of his stock, the management of his dairy, and 

 the preservation of his crop of stock from insect pest or disease, 

 that are not being studied by some of the agricultural experi- 

 ment stations. 



Nearly fifty years ago a company of farmers joined them- 

 selves together near the little village of Moeckern, near the 

 city, and under the influence, of the University of Liepsic, 

 called a chemist to their aid and later, with help from the gov- 

 ernment, organized the first agricultural experiment station. 

 Liebig in Germany, Boussingault in France, Laws and Gilbert 

 in England and other great pioneers, had been blazing the path 

 of progress for years before. A great deal of research bearing 

 upon agriculture had been and is still being carried on in the 

 schools and universities, but the action of these Saxon agricul- 

 turists in 1 85 1, marks the beginning of the experiment station 

 proper, the organization of scientific research with the aid of 

 government as a necessary and permanent branch of agri- 

 cultural business. 



This experiment station speedily commended itself so that in 

 Europe in 1856, there were five experiment stations ; in 1861, 15 ; 

 in 1866, 30; and to-day there are more than 100 experiment sta- 

 tions and kindred institutions in the different countries of 

 Europe. In each of these, trained investigators are engaged in 



