448 HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 
Mr. Burtzson. Nothing is impossible when you consider Yankee 
ingenuity. 
Mr. Grarr. There has been considerable discussion about a bulletin 
that was issued by Professor Whitney; none of the rest of the gentle- 
man has the courage to ask you about it, but I presume to do so. 
Secretary Wiuson. From Liebig’s day up to the present time the 
chemists have had the floor, and whatever was told us was told by 
those chemists all these years back. Now we have started in to study 
the soil for the first time in this Department; and Doctor Whitney 
tinds certain indications. He can tell by putting an instrument in the 
soil the per cent of moisture there, and the per cent of salt in the 
moisture, and he thinks that by examining the salt content of the 
moisture he can tell the capacity of that soil to feed the plant; and 
the chemists do not believe a word of it. But let me tell you some- 
thing about the limitations of the chemists. I wanted to have a tobacco 
leaf analyzed by achemist, and 1 could not find anybody that could do 
it; could not tell me anything about it. 
And I found a little German who told me that tobacco leaf had some 
ferments in it, the same as the milk of the dairy cow has, that ripens 
the cheese, and this next leaf had two of these ferments, the next one 
three, and another had four. That opened upathought. The Japanese 
came and took him away, at $7,000 a year, and then we did not have a 
chemist. Isent over to Johns-Hopkins. There wasa young man there 
from Iowa whom I used to know. He had graduated at the Ames 
Agricultural College, waited and got the master’s degree, waited 
another and taught chemistry; then went to Johns-Hopkins University. 
I said to him, ‘‘Can you analyze the tobacco leaf?” He said, ‘‘I can 
not.” TI said, ‘‘ What in the world have you been doing all these years 
in Johns-Hopkins and can not analyze tobacco?” 
He said ‘‘They did not teach me plant pathology,” but he added, 
‘‘A new world has opened up to me.” We got two doctors of chem- 
istry. I sent for Doctor Wiley and Doctor Galloway and several 
chiefs, and I said ‘‘Gentlemen, we are up against it now. Here area 
couple of doctors of chemistry; they are ready to study this problem. 
How are they to be taught?” ‘* Well,” the plant man said, “‘ it is no use 
to teach them more chemistry; they have plenty of chemistry now. 
The trouble is, they do not know anything about the plant; they must 
o to work and study the physiology of it.” They began to work at 
$60 a month, those doctors of chemistry, and they are studying and 
bringing about results, and by and by we expect to have chemists that 
can analyze a tobacco leaf, a cabbage leaf, and things of that kind. 
Mr. Grarr. Doctor Whitney attempts to lay down as an absolute 
fact conclusions that, if true, are certainly very startling. 
Secretary Witson. With regard to that, Mr. Graff, I say to Doctor 
Whitney, *‘I know a great many things you are doing; nearly every- 
thing you do is valuable to the Department; I do not know whether 
you are right or wrong on this proposition you lay down, but go to 
work and demonstrate it; take time. go to work with it;” and he has. 
Iam going to give a man opportunity to prove whether he is wrong 
or whether he is right, and if he is wrong with regard to that one 
thing, then he is wrong, that’s all. 
Mr. Grarr. Iam glad to have the Secretary say that, because if it 
could be stated that the Department absolutely supported these 
alleged discoveries as being a truth which had been fixed, then the 
