98 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIV. No. 340 



A great deal of research bearing upon agriculture had been and is 

 still being carried on in the schools and universities ; but the action 

 of these Saxon agriculturists in 1851 marks the beginning of the 

 experiment station proper, — the organization of scientific research 

 with the aid of government " as a necessary and permanent branch 

 of agricultural business." 



The seed thus sown has brought forth many fold. In 1856 

 there were five, in 1861 fifteen, in 1866 thirty, and to-day there are 

 more than one hundred, experiment stations and kindred institu- 

 tions in the different countries of Europe. In each of these, from 

 one to ten or more investigators are engaged in the discovery of 

 the laws that underlie the practice of farming, and in finding how 

 they are best applied. 



So rapid and so sure has been the progress of this enterprise in 

 .both hemispheres, that private persons, educators, societies, and 

 governments have learned the usefulness, and indeed the necessity, 

 of these institutions, not for the farmer alone, but for all who are 

 dependent upon the products of the soil. The movement is extend- 

 ing to Asia and to South America: everywhere, indeed, its impor- 

 tance is coming to be felt. 



The first agricultural experiment station in America was estab- 

 lished at Middletown, Conn., in the chemical laboratory of Wes- 

 leyan University, in 1875. The example was speedily followed 

 elsewhere. In 1880 four were in operation, and in 1887 there were 

 some seventeen of these institutions in fourteen States. In that 

 year Congress made the enterprise national by an appropriation 

 of $15,000 per annum to each of the States and Territories which 

 have established agricultural colleges or agricultural departments 

 of colleges. This has led to the establishment of new stations, or 

 the increased development of stations previously established under 

 State authority ; so that there are to-day forty-six, or, counting 

 branch stations, fifty-seven, agricultural experiment stations in the 

 United States. Every State has at least one station, several have 

 two, and one has three. Before provision had been made by the 

 last Congress for the admission of the new States, Dakota had 

 established one within her boundaries, and several other Terri- 

 tories are preparing to do likewise. 



These forty-six stations now employ over three hundred and 

 seventy trained men in the prosecution of experimental inquiry. 

 The appropriation by the United States Government for the fiscal 

 year just closing, for them and for the office of experiment stations 

 in this department, is §595,000; for the coming year it is §600,000. 

 The several States appropriate about §125,000 in addition, making 

 the sum total of about §720,000 given from public funds the present 

 year for the support of agricultural experiment stations in the 

 United States. This may seem like a large sum to expend annually 

 for agricultural experiments, but it is less than 10 cents for each of 

 the 7,500,000 farm-workers of the country, less than 2+ cents for 

 each of the 30,000,000 of our population directly dependent upon 

 agriculture for their support, and less than ij cents for each of the 

 60,000,000 of our people who consume the products of our farms. 

 The farming-lands, farm-implements, and live-stock of the country 

 are estimated to be worth $12,000,000,000. The experiment stations 

 cost us, therefore, about §6.25 a year for every million dollars in- 

 vested in agriculture ; or, reckoning the annual value of the prod- 

 ucts of our farms at §2,200,000,000, we are now spending about 

 33i cents for every thousand dollars' worth of products in an at- 

 tempt to increase the value of those products in future years. 



The European Stations. 



Of the experiment stations and other like institutions for agricul- 

 tural research in Europe, sixty-two are in Germany. These latter 

 employ two hundred and seventeen scientific specialists. Accord- 

 ing to the best accessible accounts, twenty-seven German stations 

 exercise control of commercial fertilizers, twenty-nine of feeding- 

 stuffs, and thirty of seeds by examination of wares in the interest 

 of the purchaser ; this, however, in most cases, being only part of 

 the work done. Some stations follow a number of lines of inquiry, 

 others confine themselves to one or two. In general, those have 

 been most successful which have studied the smallest number of 

 questions in proportion to their resources ; or, to put it in another 

 way, experience has shown the advantage of specializing. Fifteen 

 are devoted mainly to investigations in vegetable physiology, in- 



cluding nutrition of plants ; seven to aniinal physiology, including 

 feeding-experiments ; three to dairy industry ; four to sugar-beet 

 and three to fruit and vine culture. Nine have buildings for vege- 

 tation experiments, four have special structures for feeding-experi- 

 ments with animals, and two have experimental gardens. While 

 they conduct more or less field-experiments (the first station was 

 started on a farm), few own experimental farms ; and those few 

 make but little use of them, for the simple reason that experience 

 has shown, that, generally speaking, the things which most help 

 farmers, outside of what they can study on their own farms, the 

 stations can best find out in the laboratory, the greenhouse, and the 

 experimental stable. They have learned the costly but most valu- 

 able lesson that the kind of experimenting which seems on the 

 surface the most practical is apt to prove the least useftil, and that 

 it requires abstract and profound research to discover the things 

 which the plain, ordinary farmer needs to know. 



The European stations have become as firmly established as 

 schools, and for the same reason ; namely, that their value is 

 demonstrated beyond question. A single illustration of their use- 

 fulness will suffice here. " The consummate product of applied 

 farm-science is the ' Farmers' Almanac,' which tens of thousands 

 of German farmers carry in their pockets. It contains a calendar ; 

 tables of movable feasts ; blanks for daily memoranda, cash ac- 

 counts, and so on, such as we have in our diaries. Then follow 

 blanks for names of workmen, their work and wages ; forms for 

 registering cows and their daily or weekly yield of milk, and for 

 other stock ; other forms for keeping account with each field on the 

 farm, — its size, crop, manure, seed, and produce; and so on. 

 Then comes a series of tables and statements which compress in 

 brief space an amount of pertinent information that is almost 

 marvellous. 



" One table gives the amount of seed by weight or measure 

 needed per Prussian acre (morgen) or hectare, broadcast or in 

 drills or hills, for each of ninety-five different kinds of crops. An- 

 other gives what they call in Germany fair yields (they would be 

 large yields here), with duration of germinating power of the seed, 

 period of growth of the plants, and what corresponds in German 

 weights and measures to weight per bushel or bulk per 100 pounds 

 of the different kinds of produce. Further on are tables of inix- 

 tures of grass-seeds for different soils and purposes, number of 

 plants per acre, valuation of seeds, and so on. 



" But the most remarkable tables are those of the chemical com- 

 position of plants, fertilizers, feeding-stuffs, fodder-rations, and 

 human food, and even of the whole bodies of animals. 



" If the farmer wishes to find how much plant-food he has re- 

 moved from his field in a hay-crop of 5 tons, he turns to a ' Table 

 for Calculating the Exhaustion and Enrichment of the Soil,' and 

 finds that the 5 tons of hay would contain about 155 pounds of 

 nitrogen, 132 pounds of potash, 8i pounds of lime, 41 pounds of 

 phosphoric acid, and so on. The composition of nearly two hun- 

 dred kinds of grasses, grains, straws, root-crops, etc., are given in 

 this table. If he now wishes to calculate how much plant-food he 

 gives back to his field with a given amount of manure, he turns to 

 another part of the table, and finds the average composition of one 

 hundred and twenty-six kinds of manures and fertilizing materials. 

 There are, too, clear figures and explanations to help him calculate 

 how the analysis of a fertilizer compares with standard articles of 

 this sort, and what it is worth. From other pages he learns how 

 to calculate how much material ought to be produced by given 

 kmds of animals from given food, and so on. 



" Not a bit less valuable are the tables of the composition of 

 feeding-stuffs and fodder-rations. The farmer sees at a glance 

 how many pounds of the valuable food-ingredients — proteine, 

 carbohydrates, and fats — there are in hay, straw, corn-stalks, 

 bran, cotton-seed meal, and two hundred and fifty other materials 

 which German farmers feed to their stock. Close by is a table of 

 feeding standards, which tells how much of each of these ingredi- 

 ents will make a fair daily ration per 1,000 pounds, live weight, of 

 oxen at rest in the stall, oxen at work, milch cows, young cattle, 

 and so on. By comparing the composition of these standards with 

 that of the feeding-stuffs in the barn or store, rations can be cal- 

 culated which will bring the largest amount of work or meat or 

 milk at the least cost. Of course, these rules are not to be followed 



