ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 

 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT 

 STATION- 1935 



INTRODUCTION 



F. J. Sievers, Director 



In our attempts to deal with the problems of agriculture through experiment 

 station services it has become recognized that the best interests of the individual 

 operator quite commonly come into conflict with what is economically most 

 sound for the industry. While the industry in its entirety reacts definitely to 

 certain causes and effects, the individual units that compose the industry are 

 not always so influenced. It is mainly for this reason that many of the attempts 

 to regulate the operations of, or to prescribe for, the entire industry have not 

 been received with sufficient enthusiasm by enough individuals to make them 

 successful. 



In the experiment station a realization of this fundamental principle has 

 made the investigator so conservative that he has hesitated to project the 

 results from his investigations beyond what could be supported by definite 

 data obtained through an analytical approach. When urged to go beyond this, 

 he has in some cases been willing to make recommendations for individual farms if 

 he felt thoroughly conversant with the detailed operations, but then only with 

 a realization that his recommendations would not prove sound for the entire 

 industry. While such service may have been relatively satisfactory when 

 agriculture was reasonably profitable, it is not considered adequate when an 

 industry is in economic distress. 



There has been a feeling on the part of a large number of constructive states- 

 men that agriculture, in proportion to the prominent position it occupied in 

 the Nation's business, was not getting its fair share of the financial return. The 

 industry needed and deserved help. It needed the type of help that the experi- 

 ment stations could give if they expanded their field of operations beyond 

 applied science and into the province of applied economics. Support for this 

 type of development was provided by increased Federal as well as State funds, 

 and researchers trained in the specialized field of economies and farm manage- 

 ment were added to the staff. Such supplementary service was intended to 

 extend the influence of agricultural research beyond the horizon set by the 

 applied scientist. This was a laudable objective and one that was accepted 

 with enthusiasm but unfortunately with a decidedly limited background of 

 experience. 



Economics was called the "dismal science" because it had been content to 

 confine itself largely to the past. The agricultural chemist had learned that, to 

 meet present-day demands, it was not enough to be familiar only with the ideals 

 and accomplishments of such pioneers as Justus von Liebig; while the econo- 

 mist was still quite content to quote from Adam Smith. The science of eco- 

 nomics had been concerned only with looking backward, and suddenly it was 

 assigned the problem of prescribing for the present and also for the future. This 

 necessitated the development of new methods and new viewpoints but under 

 already-established administrations. It was only natural, therefore, that the 

 methods of research that had proved effective in the field of applied science 

 should be introduced here, namely, the analytical approach. Several years of 



