30 N. H. AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION [Bulletin 199 



Through addresses by members of the Station staff before 

 Granges, Farmers' Institutes, Farm Bureau meetings, etc. 



Through the regularly established Extension Service, in co- 

 operation with the College, the counties, and the United States 

 Department of Agriculture. 



PURPOSES OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS 



On the principle that research work is vital to farming inter- 

 ests, agricultural experiment stations have been established in 

 every state in the Union as well as in Guam, Hawaii, Porto Rico 

 and Alaska. The New Hampshire Station was founded in 1888. 

 In general the work of the stations has been classified as follows : 



(1) They act as bureaus of information on maiw questions 

 of practical interest to the farmers of the state. 



(2) They seek by practical tests to devise better methods 

 of agriculture and to introduce new crops and live stock, or to 

 establish new agricultural industries. 



(3) They aid the farmer in his contest with insects and with 

 diseases of his crops and live stock. 



(4) They help to defend the farmer against fraud in the 

 sale of fertilizers, seeds, spray materials and feeding stuffs. 



(5) They investigate the operations of nature in the air, 

 , water, soil, plants and animals in order to find out the prin- 

 ciples which can be applied to the betterment of the processes 

 and products of agriculture. 



The Experiment Station is the farmer's laboratory where he 

 secures the information which is of as vital importance to him as 

 is the specialized laboratory of the large 'business corporation. 



Already the annual appropriations of $30,000 which the Fed- 

 eral government has been spending in New Hampshire of recent 

 years for agricultural research work have borne fruit in many 

 improved agricultural practices, and the state itself has now 

 recognized the Experiment Station with an important appropri- 

 ation. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the agricul- 

 tural research laboratory, the experimental plots and orchards, 

 the feeding chamber, the breeding pen, are a straight business 

 proposition that is inevitably bound up with the future of New 

 Hampshire's farms. 



