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HOW SHALL AGRICULTURE BEST OBTAIN THE HELP OF SCIENCE ? 343 



in tliis direction. We have at the present time no accurate idea of what is 

 the average composition of any portion of our agricultural pi'oduce, for tlie 

 simple reason that the collection of the scattered analyses, the rejection of 

 imperfect work, and the averaging of the remainder is so large an under- 

 taking that no private individual has had the courage to attempt the task. 

 The results of this present lack of national information are not unimport- 

 ant. "\^'e are obliged at the present time to employ German averages for 

 all purposes of teaching or calculation. These averages are in the main 

 prepared from German analyses, and relate to crops and foods grown in a 

 different climate, and under different conditions, to our own. In the 

 United States, the want of national statistics respecting the composition 

 of foods and crops has been supplied by their Department of Agriculture, 

 which has published in one volume more than 3,000 analyses of American- 

 grown foods, all properly classified and averaged. In the same way the 

 results of American digestion experiments, made exclusively with 

 American foods and American animals, have been collected and pub- 

 lislied, thus again obviating the necessity for relying solely on German 

 figures. 



An efficient Department of Agriculture should be provided with a staff 

 of officers representing all the sciences connected with agriculture ; these 

 officers should be furnished with suitable laboratories, and all the machinery 

 reijuired for carrying out investigations and making reports. Thus 

 equipped the department would be able to attempt the solution of 

 agricultural problems of pressing importance. The work done at this 

 Government institution would also serve as a model for the investigations 

 carried on at the smaller experiment stations. The investigations thus 

 conducted with public money should be of a thoroughly practical character, 

 the results of which would have a direct bearing on the farmer's work. 

 Let me venture on a single illustration. Persian barley has lately been 

 imported into England in considerable quantity ; its price has been lower 

 than that of any other kind of barley in the market. A question at once 

 arises in the mind of the cattle-feeder, Is it really cheap 1 Will a sovereign 

 expended on these thin, shrivelled grains purchase a greater weight of food 

 substance, and fatten an animal better, than the same money spent on 

 English barley ? The farmer can neither make a chemical analysis nor 

 carry out an accurate feeding experiment, but a properly equipped 

 Department of Agricultui-e could do both, and in a few weeks issue a report 

 which would be of substantial benefit to the farmers of this country. 



Before leaving this part of the subject let us note what our brethren 

 across the water are doing in this matter. Canada, though a poor 

 country, and with a population of only five millions, has its central agri- 

 cultural laboratories, and its chemists and botanists employed under its 

 Department of Agriculture, and spends 15,000/. a year on the agiicultui'al 

 investigations conducted at the central station at Ottawa and at the four 

 provincial stations. In the United States the annual cost of the in- 

 vestigations carried out by the Central Department of Agriculture at 

 Washington cannot be less than 60,000^., and this is exclusive of the 

 cost of the work done at the fifty-five expeiimen,t stations in the ^ arious 

 States, towards which 150,000/. is annually contributed by the National 

 Government.' 



' The figures quoted, both for Ciiuada and the United States, do not include the 

 very considerable sums .'pent for the same objects by tbe local governments in these 

 countries. 



