226 



TEE AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



demic of 1896. In this way it is hoped that 

 a barrier will be opposed to the further 

 progress of the disease. Such process will, 

 of course, be free from the grave objection 

 attaching itself to the use of bile, serum 

 being free from the possibility of intro- 

 ducing the infection, and at the same time 

 the immunity which is conferred is 

 established within a few moments, and 

 not, as in the case of bile, until the lapse 

 of ten days. In the meanwhile, cattle 

 undoubtedly salted are being rapidly 

 fortified with virulent blood, taken from 



one of the sick beasts, in order that a 

 potent and reliable serum may be avail- 

 able for checking any extension which 

 may unhappily occur. No virus will of 

 course be used in immunising the sur- 

 rounding stock ; they will, therefore, in 

 the strict sense of the word, be " immun- 

 ed," but not salted. It has been ascertained 

 by European workers with the serum 

 that the immunity produced by good 

 serum equals in point of time, if it does 

 not exceed, the length of immunity con- 

 ferred by a bile injection. 



ExpeHmenfat Farms. 



AN AMERICAN EXPERT. 



MR. G. M. ODLUM, B.Sc, from Michi- 

 gan, U.S.A., who has been engaged 

 to start Agricultural Experiment Stations 

 in Rhodesia, has been devoting a few days 

 to the study of agriculture in this Colony. 

 Mr. Odium was good enough to sanction 

 the publication of the following observa- 

 tions which he made on experimental 

 farms in America : — 



" By next spring," he said, " I hope to 

 start two or three orchards of about 3,000 

 trees in Mashonaland. I shall have 300 

 varieties of fruit trees, and in each 

 of the orchards ten of each variety 

 will be planted. In this manner we 

 should get at reliable information as 

 to the kinds of trees which do best, 

 as to how they are affected under 

 different conditions of soil, climate, and 

 altitude, and as to how they do cultivated 

 under irrigation, or ' dry farming ' as we 

 call it. There will also l^e some experi- 

 mental growing of mealies. I have about 

 two dozen American varieties for trial. 

 In America all advanced men are great 

 cultivators. Mealies get cultivation every 

 week. The crop will receive, say, seven 

 or eight cultivations. The two top inches 

 of soil will be as fine as dust, and not a 

 weed will be seen. Our properly-managed 

 orchard" are absolutely free from weeds. 



" Experimental agriculture is conducted 

 by nearly all the American States. Each 

 State will have from one to five Experi- 

 mental Stations, and each State has its 



Director, supported by a staff of from ten 

 to forty. The staff will include bacteri- 

 ologists, agriculturalists, entomologists, 

 dairy experts, poultry experts, live stock 

 experts, horticulturists, botanists, mycolo- 

 gists, veterinarians, zoologists, soil ex- 

 perts, agricultural chemists, and so on. 

 All the work is specialised, so there is 

 practically no useless overlapping. Each 

 station has its manager for the field work, 

 and his subordinates. At first — some 30 

 years ago — farmers were sceptical as to the 

 advantage they could derive from re- 

 searches and demonstrations in scientific 

 agriculture,but all scepticism or jealousy is 

 long gone by, and the Legislatures of many 

 States are ready to vote more money for 

 educational agriculture than is required. 



" The success which has attended the 

 institution of these centres for scientific 

 research and for scientific and practical 

 education has been enormous. The mone- 

 tary returns have been a thousandfold, and 

 these results are ijiterestingly proved by 

 elaborate statistics annually published by 

 the various States. Take California for 

 instance. There the fruit industry has 

 been twice rescued from destruction, and 

 thus the l5tate has benefited to the extent 

 of millions of pounds. In Michigan the 

 fruit industry was also saved from destruc- 

 tion, and here, also, the introduction, after 

 years of experimental research, of new 

 wheats, has resulted in increasing the 

 yield from the same acreage by one 

 million bushels. In Carolina a fuugug 



