48 THE far.mkr's education. 



public benefit. To meet this necessity the United States Gov- 

 ernment appropriates $15,000 per annum to each state to be 

 expended exclusively in experiments for the benefit of agri- 

 culture. This sum is, I believe in all cases, placed in the 

 hands of some one connected with the Agricultural College, 

 and usually the head of it. This person is known as the 

 Director of tlie Experiment Station, and is held strictly account- 

 able to the United States Treasury for the expenditure of the 

 funds. He is also obliged to publish at least four bulletins in 

 each year, in which the work done at the station is described, 

 with the results. 



Some of the most valuable work ever done in the agricul- 

 tural interest has been performed by these stations, and the 

 work is likely to go on forever, continually increasing in 

 value as more experience is gained. These bulletins, issued 

 by these stations, have come to be the principal sources of 

 exact information in agricultural matters. Experimenting is 

 an art, and it is by no means every one who can experiment 

 in any such way as to secure valuable results. It is also very 

 costly, and entirely beyond the means of the ordinary farmer. 



In a general way all intelligent farmers are now familiar 

 with the work of these stations, and yet their educational 

 value is not well understood. Perhaps their greatest value is 

 in teaching what to avoid. An experiment which is successful 

 on a small scale and with constant watchfulness and care, 

 may be wholly unsuccessful under the ordinary conditions of 

 farm life, but a culture which will not succeed under station 

 conditions should not, as a rule, be attempted under ordinary 

 conditions. 



Experiments in feeding and digestion have been very 

 valuable. An animal can only grow or yield work by the 

 assimilation of food. When food was abundant and cheap, 

 and the market known, almost any kind of feeding might 

 show a profit. But when food is dear, or prices of animals 

 very low, it becomes an object to know, as exactly as possible, 

 the relative feeding value of all feedstuffs. It is not what an 

 animal eats but what it digests that counts, and if an increase 

 of muscle is desired, it is a waste to feed fat-forming foods in 



