82 STATE POiMOLOGICAL SOCIl^TV. 



the discovery of the laws that underHe the practice of farming 

 and in finding out how they are best appHed. 



So rapid and so sure has been the progress in this enterprise 

 in both hemispheres, that private persons, educators, societies 

 and governments have learned the usefulness and indeed the 

 necessity of these institutions, not for the farmer alone, but for 

 all who are dependent upon the products of the soil. The move- 

 ment has extended so that there are to-day agricultural experi- 

 ment stations on every continent, and in most of the civilized 

 countries. There are experiment stations not only in Europe 

 and North America, but in Asia, in Africa, in South America, 

 and in Australia. It is impossible to form an estimate of the 

 number of men that are engaged exclusively in this w^ork of 

 investigation, but there must be at least 3000 trained investi- 

 gators studying in these agricultural experiment stations the 

 various problems pertaining to the tillage cf the soil, the care 

 of crops, animal husbandry, horticulture and allied subjects. 

 ■ The expermient station movement in Europe was nearly 25 

 years old before any experiment stations were established in 

 this country. Storer, at the Bussey Institution, Johnson at the 

 Sheffield Scientific School, and other pioneers in American scien- 

 tific agriculture were laying the foundations. The demand for 

 teachers in agriculture in land grant colleges stimulated education 

 along these lines, but it was not until 1875 that any definite 

 move was made toward the establishment of an experiment sta- 

 tion. In that year, when the Connecticut legislature came 

 together, Mr. Orange Judd, founder and then proprietor of the 

 American Agricidfurist, made a proposition to the Board of 

 Agriculture, and through them to the legislature, that if the 

 legislature would appropriate $2,800 for two years for an experi- 

 ment station, he would personally give a like sum, and the 

 Wesleyan University would place the services of their Professor 

 of Chemistry and their laboratory at its disposal. The legis- 

 lature accepted that ofifer, and thus the first experiment station 

 in America began its work twenty-four years ago the first day 

 of last month. This work justified itself to the agriculture of 

 ■Connecticut, so when the next legislature met, in 1877, they made 

 an annual appropriation of $7,000 for the continuation of the 

 experiment station. The Connecticut Experiment Station thus 



