SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 137 



sum of money is not less than four thousand. Millions of copies 

 of bulletins and reports are now issued annually by the experi- 

 ment stations, and the mass of literature sent out by the federal 

 department is something prodigious. Department and station 

 men are found frequently on the platform at agricultural con- 

 ventions and farmers' institutes, and their contributions to 

 agricultural literature in the way of books and newspaper dis- 

 cussion are extensive. History records no other instance of an 

 organized attempt to aid agriculture or any other industry on a 

 scale so magnificent in its proportions and so far-reaching hi its 

 results. 



But in all candor it must be confessed that, whatever may 

 have been the phraseology of law or of common speech hi char- 

 acterizing this movement, it has been mainly an effort, not of 

 research, but of the exploitation of existing knowledge. We have 

 not reached far into the unknown, and although important new 

 truths have been brought to light, our efforts at inquiry have 

 neither produced results nor commanded the respect of the 

 scientific world to an extent commensurate with the generous 

 means applied. During the past twenty-five years we have been 

 busy instead with much agricultural speaking and writing. The 

 chemist has been called from his crucible, the botanist from his 

 microscope, the editor from his desk, and the farmer from his 

 plow, to aid in spreading the gospel of an agriculture based on 

 exact knowledge into almost every hamlet in the land. The 

 unknown, but greatly inadequate, facts and principles of science 

 have been exhibited with kaleidoscopic effects and have been 

 turned inside out and upside down in order to meet conditions 

 almost numberless in their variety. 



Doubtless it may be argued in a way more or less convincing 

 that the diffusion of existing knowledge was necessarily the first 

 step in bringing the people in harmony with, and to the support 

 of, the kind of educational and research work that is our goal. 

 There is much to be said for this position, but we must not forget 



