lOO 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIV. No. 340 



The diseases of plants, vines, and trees have been' studied, and 

 remedies sought, and the station has tried to introduce new crops 

 in sections of the State hitherto comparatively barren. The sor- 

 ghum experiments for this purpose have attracted attention 

 throughout the whole country. It is safe to say, that, in the scien- 

 tific and praqtical value of its work, this station is equalled by ex- 

 tremely few of the Eui opean stations. 



The station had been steadily growing in the favor of the farm- 

 ers and general public of the State, and is now regarded as an edu- 

 cating agency of the first importance. Farmers depend upon its ' 

 work, manufacturers of fertilizers are made careful, dealers in 

 ■seeds and implements seek its approval. The progress of agricul- 

 ture in New Jersey is marked by larger staple crops ; higher en- 

 richment of the soil; extended cultivation of market-garden prod- 

 ucts, peaches, and small-fruit ; and a great increase in dairying. 

 Even from year to year the progress is plainly marked. That the 

 ■station contributes much to this progress, there is no room for 

 ■doubt. 



Louisiana has three stations, the first of which was established 

 in October, 1885, by an association of sugar-planters; and the 

 last, in April, 1888. These stations have already accomplished 

 ■much useful -work, including investigations of the manurial re- 

 quirements of various staple crops of the StaSe ; analyses and 

 classification of the soils of the State ; analyses of all the commer- 

 cial fertilizers sold in the State ; experiments with forty-two varie- 

 ties of cotton to determine the relative yield of lint, length of staple, 

 and strength of fibre ; and the introduction, with the aid of the 

 United States commissioner of agriculture, of more than seventy 

 varieties of sugar-cane, forty-eight of which are now cultivated in 

 the State. Each station is the headquarters for a large agricul- 

 tural association, which holds monthly meetings on the station 

 grounds. At the North Louisiana Station, at Calhoun, the farmers 

 have raised by subscription the means to build a hall for these 

 meetings, which are frequently attended by several hundred farm- 

 ers. During the season for sugar-making, the sugar experiment 

 station, which has quite recently been moved from Kenner to Au- 

 dubon Park, New Orleans, is visited by planters from all parts of 

 the world. The average number of visitors at this station during 

 the past season was about one hundred a day. 



The influence of the Wisconsin Station within the State has been 

 very marked. Its experiments on pig-feeding are favorably known 

 throughout the whole country. The following extract from a let- 

 ter from Director Henry indicates some of the other good things 

 which the station has done and is doing : " Years ago the station, 

 then called the Experimental Farm, sent out the Mansury barley, 

 which has been worth a very considerable sum to our people. 

 Last spring, after a year's patient work, our first assistant chemist 

 announced the completion of a method by which an ordinary dairy- 

 man, with a reasonable amount of care, can determine the per- 

 centage of fat in milk or cream with about as mnch accuracy as 

 the chemist by the gravimetric method. This method of deter- 

 mining fat is being brought into general use by dairymen and 

 others. Last summer our chief chemist, Dr. Babcock, announced 

 the discovery of fibrine in milk, and stated that this new compound 

 played an important part in the raising of cream. Work at the 

 station yet to be announced shows that this discovery is of con- 

 siderable importance to dairymen, and in it we have an explanation 

 of many of the phenomena of milk and cream." 



Similarly favorable reports might be given from stations from 

 Maine to California, and from Alabama to Michigan, wherever the 

 experimenting has been carried on long enough to give a fair test 

 of its value. 



Americans have the credit of dropping enterprises which do not 

 pay. It is a significant fact, therefore, that no State which has 

 once established a station has ever abandoned it. On the other 

 hand, the revenues which the stations derive from the States, apart 

 from those which they receive from the National Government, have 

 steadily risen from $2,800, with which the first station began, to 

 more than $125,000 in the present year. 



Even if some of the newer stations have as yet brought but little 

 fruit and some that is not well matured, we may confidently expect 

 before many years to have institutions in all the States which will 

 be of the highest service to American agriculture. 



One most favorable indication is the earnest desire of the man- 

 agers of the stations to do the best possible work. This has been 

 particularly manifest at the conventions of the Association of 

 American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, in which 

 matters of station policy have formed the principal theme of dis- 

 cussion. The underlying thought has uniformly been to learn to 

 do what will best serve the interests for which the stations are 

 established. 



The experiment-station enterprise is now equipped for its great 

 work. From its small beginning, fourteen years ago, it has grown 

 out to the farthest limits of our land, has enlisted the best colleges 

 and universities and the ablest investigators of the country, and 

 secured both State and National resources for its service. It has 

 the favor not only of leading minds in science and education, but 

 also of a great army of practical farmers, to whom it has already 

 brought substantial benefits. As the first secretary of agriculture 

 has justly said, "Of all the scientific enterprises which the govern- 

 ment has undertaken, scarcely any other has impressed its value 

 upon the people and their representatives in the State and National 

 legislatures so speedily and so strongly as this. The rapid growth 

 of an enterprise for elevating agriculture by the aid of science, its 

 espousal by the United States Government, its development to its 

 present dimensions in so short a period, and, finally, the favor with 

 which it is received by the public at large, are a striking illustra- 

 tion of the appreciation, on the part of the American people, of the 

 wisdom and the usefulness of calling the highest science to the aid 

 of the^arts and industries of life. The present is an auspicious 

 time for this undertaking. ' In the history of no nation before have 

 there been such a thirst for knowledge on the part of the great 

 masses of the people, such high and just appreciation of its value, 

 and such wide-reaching, successful, and popular schemes for self- 

 education ; no other nation has so large a body of farmers of high 

 intelligence ; never before has the great agricultural public been so 

 willing, and indeed so anxious, to receive with respect and use 

 with intelligence the information which science offers ; never be- 

 fore has science had so much to give.' The prospects, then, for 

 this, the largest scientific enterprise in behalf of agriculture that 

 any government has undertaken, are full of promise." 



The Office of Experiment Stations of the Department of 

 Agriculture. 



The number and diversity of problems to be solved in the widely 

 separated sections of our country, the need of linking the stations 

 together, of helping to co-ordinate their efforts, of bringing to them 

 the fruits of accumulated experience, of assisting them in research, 

 and of collating their products and making them available to the 

 public whom they serve, and the evident propriety that the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture should aid the enterprise in these respects, — 

 all these considerations evince the wisdom of Congress in provid- 

 ing for a central office, as a branch of this department, to meet the 

 need. 



The stations themselves, through the Association of American 

 Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, were the prime 

 movers in securing the establishment of this office, and have given 

 to it their cordial sympathy and support. 



ENEMIES OF THE PLANT-LOUSE. 



The importance of parasitic and predaceous insects in over- 

 coming our insect pests has long been recognized by the practical 

 entomologist. He sees the destroyers swept off as by a flood, and 

 sees in these prolific friends the easy solution of the problem of in- 

 sect years. He knows, that, were it not for these friends, the de- 

 stroying hosts would make our earth a desert, and replace plenty 

 with famine. He knows that adversity among these tiny helpers 

 means success to the swarms of insects that devour the crops, and 

 so is rejoiced when he sees these little helpers active and numer- 

 ous. 



The present season has furnished a vivid illustration of this im- 

 portant and interesting fact. On June 30 the heads of wheat in 

 Michigan were crowded with hungry Aphides, or plant-lice. These 

 myriad lice, often five or six around a single kernel of wheat, and 

 two hundred on a single head, were sucking the sap and very vi- 



