STATE EXPERIMENT STATION 211 



country urgently need the aid and stimulus of the Experiment 

 Stations is to make a most evident assertion. Our Agricul- 

 tural Colleges have but few agricultural students. — The reason 

 lies mainly in the fact that our intellectual activity has the 

 habit of running in other than agricultural channels. To 

 bring our farmers in direct and profitable contact with the 

 results of science, to bring science into active and visible 

 cooperation with the toils and plans of the farm, would 

 redound to the eminent advantage of both. The Experiment 

 Station, I cannot doubt, is to be this point of contact, the 

 focus of this cooperation. 



The quarter century, now just completed, of our 

 national system of agricultural stations mtnesses the 

 fulfilment of Professor Johnson's forecast made 

 nearly forty years ago, and now realized even beyond 

 his serenely confident expectation. The proved use- 

 fulness in Connecticut of a few fertilizer analyses 

 accurately made and their results intelligently used 

 in 1857, was largely instrumental in the establishment 

 in 1887 of an agricultural station in every state and 

 territory. The educational stimulus of these sta- 

 tions has reacted on the agricultural community and 

 informed the public at large, so that today there is 

 no dearth of eager students in our agricultural col- 

 leges. These, with high standards and ample facili- 

 ties, are now training every year thousands of able, 

 ambitious men to meet most exacting professional 

 requirements, not as teachers only, but largely as 

 workers in the business world, producers of our na- 

 tional wealth. Surely a wonderful result in so short a 

 period is this outcome of efforts in which Professor 

 Johnson bore a sustained part. 



