STATE EXPERIMENT STATION 193 



few years ago, we could see nothing but total dark- 

 ness." He went on to say: 



I wish that in Connecticut we might have a similar insti- 

 tution. . . . It is in the power of Connecticut to do this, and 

 if we could only see the benefits that would flow from that 

 work, if we could only be put in the position of those who 

 in Germany inaugurated these enterprises, and have kept 

 them up so that now there are more than forty of these so- 

 called "experimental stations" in that country, every one of 

 which is turning out every year new and solid contributions 

 to the art (because to the science) of agriculture, — we should 

 not rest until it is done. I only wish that I could give up 

 the daily duty which it is necessary for me to follow and be a 

 missionary in the State of Connecticut, to go around among 

 the farmers and stir them up in this matter. If I could do 

 that, I should feel that I might go down to my grave with the 

 reputation of having done something for my State which I 

 know (and which some of you who are here before me will 

 know sometime, if you do not believe it now,) will be of more 

 benefit than all the agencies which are now working in behalf 

 of agriculture in this country. We are simply grinding over 

 the old grist which our fathers have given us; we are dis- 

 cussing the question of fertilization, and all that sort of thing, 

 just as was done in the days of the old Roman Empire. I 

 can go to my shelves and take down a history of Roman 

 agriculture, and can put my finger on almost all the good 

 ideas which you will hear ventilated in any agricultural meet- 

 ing in this country, — except those which have come within 

 the last thirty or forty years from the investigations of mod- 

 ern science. Why not throw up some broader, straighter and 

 firmer highways, whereon we can travel comfortably and 

 rapidly without discomfort from dust, or peril from mire? 

 Why not make the agriculture of New England the promi- 

 nent achievement of her civilization ? What is done in politics, 

 what is done in war, what is done in diplomacy, may be 



