4 LETTER-FILES OF S. W. JOHNSON 



prior to the opening of the first state experiment 

 station in this country, he — as chemist to the Con- 

 necticut Agricultural Society and to the Connecticut 

 State Board of Agriculture — was doing for the com- 

 munity the essential work of an agricultural experi- 

 ment station, gaining by means of his personal repu- 

 tation the confidence of farmers and familiarizing 

 them with the worth and necessity of the institution 

 which was soon to be founded in Connecticut through 

 his efforts. He gave them not only results, but an 

 intelligent understanding of their application and 

 meaning, thus arousing in the early days of this new 

 work an interest which went far towards making pos- 

 sible its development and spread to other states. That 

 his work met the requirements and established popular 

 confidence is a matter of history. As teacher, writer 

 and investigator, and as guiding hand in the adminis- 

 tration of the first experiment station. Professor 

 Johnson wielded an influence exercised by few scien- 

 tific men of his time, and was a potent factor in devel- 

 oping thought and understanding along the line of 

 the relations of science to agriculture. His writings 

 brought together and gave form to the isolated facts 

 bearing upon that subject; continuing without inter- 

 ruption for more than fifty years, they carried his 

 name beyond the boundaries of this continent. His 

 greatest work was done before the experiment station 

 movement became national and before popular senti- 

 ment had embraced the idea of a system of institutions 

 devoted to scientific work in the interests of practical 

 agriculture. His labors, his studies and his public 

 utterances prepared the way for the reception of this 

 idea; and the example of usefulness furnished by the 



