14 EXPERIMENT STATION. [Jan. 



moreover, for the inspection of the machinery used in making 

 this test in creameries and the examination of those desiring 

 to qualify for carrying it out. 



To discover and demonstrate the value of nev^ and better 

 methods in agriculture as an art ; to test and introduce new and 

 better varieties or sj^ecies of plants and animals; to improve 

 plants and animals by selection and breeding; to broaden our 

 knowledge of the influences of air, water, electricity, light, 

 heat and cold on plants and animals in health and disease; to 

 add to our knowledge of the chemistry and physics of soils, 

 manures and fertilizers; to increase our knowledge of foods 

 and their functions in the animal and human economy; to 

 make us better acquainted with the life histories of fungi and 

 insects in their manifold relations to plants and animals and 

 to man; these are a few among the many things coming under 

 the first two classes which the agricultural experiment stations 

 are striving to do. They are not, however, in most cases, the 

 things which they are most frequently asked to do, although 

 there can be no doubt that the interests of the great agricultural 

 public are most advanced by new discoveries in these and simi- 

 lar fields. 



There is no room to doubt the salutary effect of our control 

 laws. They are recognized to be both imj^ortant and useful 

 by dealers as well as by consumers, and in carrying out the 

 necessary inspection and looking after the strict execution of 

 these laws the stations are rendering important service. The 

 cost of the execution of the fertilizer law is covered by license 

 fees paid by the manufacturers and dealers, while the execu- 

 tion of the feed and dairy laws is provided for by special State 

 appropriation for that purpose. In a certain sense the execu- 

 tion of these laws may be regarded as outside of the special 

 lines of work for which the experiment stations were founded. 

 There is doubtless danger, moreover, that such work will be 

 allowed to interfere with the more appropriate work of the 

 station. In the early days of experiment stations it was un- 

 doubtedly an advantage that the stations should be charged 

 with the execution of these laws. This arrangement served to 

 bring the station and the farmers into closer touch, and, more- 

 over, the station laboratories were equipped with the aj^paratus 



