94 CHARLES ANTHONY GOESSMANN 



no chemical work himself after he became director of 

 the Station, devoting all his time to executive work, 

 including correspondence, and particularly to study- 

 ing the work of foreign investigators. 



While he did not possess any practical agricultural 

 experience previous to coming to Massachusetts, he 

 studied thoroughly the agricultural conditions of the 

 state in order to see just how the College and Experi- 

 ment Station could be of most use to the farming in- 

 terests. In all his lines of work, his aim seemed to be 

 not so much to study fundamental problems in agricul- 

 tural chemistry as to show how chemistry could be 

 applied to help improve farm operations. 



Thus, in animal nutrition he endeavoured to illus- 

 trate the need of a greater diversity of coarse fodders, 

 and the special value of the legumes; to show by actual 

 feeding trials the value of the rapidly increasing num- 

 ber of concentrated protein by-products. In his feed- 

 ing trials with pigs, steers, and sheep, his object was to 

 show the farmer how best to utilize the by-products of 

 the dairy and the roughages of the farm in order to 

 produce pork, beef, and mutton with the greatest 

 economy. In addition to applying the principles of 

 animal nutrition as they were known, his constant 

 thought was that of economy in the feeding of ani- 

 mals, the getting of data that would show the farmer 

 the cost of producing a definite amount of animal 

 products. 



In experiments in the field his object was first to 

 secure data on the general chemical composition of 

 different soils; to note if a failure to produce crops was 



