ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT 



STATION— 1929 



INTRODUCTION 

 F. J. Slevers, Director 



With the rapid industrial changes and developments which have been 

 especially evident daring the last half century throughout many portions 

 of the world, and particularly in this country, an increasing portion of the 

 consuming public has become farther removed from its direct dependency 

 upon products of the farm. Prior to this period of marked industrial 

 progress, or evolution, the difficulty of wresting the products of agricul- 

 ture from the soil and of preparing them for use was so pronounced 

 that it required practically all of the labor of our entire employed popu- 

 lation. The farm and the home furnished the main market for the em- 

 ployment of labor; and the demands of the average consumer, beyond 

 the bare necessities of life, were comparatively few. This applied especially 

 to those demands that involved cash expenditures. The expenses and 

 cash outlays for most farm practices were not considered sufficiently sig- 

 nificant to make it necessary to keep farm accounts or to determine with 

 any degree of accuracy just what the costs of farm management opera- 

 tions were. That the economics of farm and home management did not 

 require the same consideration as today is evidenced by the fact that many 

 farms and farm homes were maintained for long periods of time even 

 though there was little indication of cash income. 



Coincident with the economic conditions during this period, investiga- 

 tional work at the experiment stations was largely concerned with projects 

 pertaining to quantity production, and little consideration was given to the 

 matter of costs and quality. As a result many practices that were de- 

 veloped and considered scientifically sound, based on such an economic 

 or lack of economic background, are found to be no longer satisfactory 

 imder present systems where costs of operation and consumer's demand 

 for qualitj' in product are factors of foremost consideration. 



An up-to-date program of research in agriculture as it pertains to 

 present-day practices on the farm and in the home must not only give the 

 same consideration as formerly to quantity of product, but is further 

 complicated by the demand that results must be interpreted on a basis 

 where the economics of production and the quality characteristics of the 

 product are properly evaluated. In the promotion of research at Mass- 

 achusetts Agricultural Experiment Station it has been the hope to main- 

 tain this desirable balance, and the progress made during the last year 

 on the several projects under investigation is reported in the following 

 pages. 



