November, 1910.] 



451 



Miscellaneous. 



will make its cost many times greater 

 than if it had been conducted with due 

 regard to the planning and care neces- 

 sary to give it worth. Where there 

 is undue haste to obtain and publish 

 results, these are likely to require revi- 

 sion, and the manner of their publication 

 will leave much to be desired. 



There is thus the great necessity for 

 patience, both on the part of the work- 

 ers in an experiment station, and on 

 that of planters, whose interests they 

 are there to serve. This necessity is 

 often forgotten, so that the lack of 

 recognition of it causes want of interest 

 in the work, and has led, in some 

 instances, to suggestions which, if 

 followed, would have put an end to the 

 Work of the station. It is such an atti- 

 tude of mind which has been known to 

 give the idea that all agricultural experi- 

 ment stations should be of the nature of 

 model farms, which should only possess 

 one means of justifying their existence, 

 namely, the ability to produce a balance 

 sheet showing a profit at the end of 

 each year of working. What has been 

 said already in these articles should be 

 sufficient to show that stations of this 

 kind could not undertake experiments 

 of the widest and most useful applica- 

 tion, and very little consideration will 

 be necessary to demonstrate that the 

 method, just outlined, of estimating 

 their usefulness is utterly fallacious and 

 unfair. 



Prom its very nature, the experiment 

 station cannot possess its value in virtue, 

 simply, of what happens within it. Its 

 effect on the agricultural conditions out- 

 side of it is obviously the true indication 

 of its worth. What does it do toward 

 ameliorating those conditions, even 

 when its influence is being considered in 

 the narrowest way ? It helps the agri- 

 culturist to save money and to gain it. 

 In the first way, it prevents him from 

 wasting his substance on useless trials 

 of expedients for enabling him to con- 

 tinue his work or make it more profit- 

 able ; in the second, it suggests and 

 introduces methods and means for the 

 more successful pursuance of the agri- 

 cultural calling. These circumstances of 

 its usefulness cannot appear on the 

 balance sheet of its working, but they 

 will have their effect in the increased 

 prosperity of the district which it serves, 

 even though many of those who share in 

 it may not have attained to a complete 

 recognition of the true cause of this 

 increase. 



These narrow considerations fall very 

 short of giving suggestions by which 

 the true value of agricultural investi- 

 gation may be gauged. By its aid, dis- 



coveries are made which, in cheapening 

 production or in protecting the different 

 phases of the industry from destruction, 

 have their value for all time. The 

 power of making such a discovery is 

 present wherever investigations of that 

 nature are being carried out, and the 

 possession of this power gives most of 

 the necessity for its existence to every 

 station, while the realisation of results 

 from it makes the value of such exis- 

 tence incalculable. Nothing more need 

 be said in regard to the question as to 

 whether agriculturists throughout the 

 world, can afford to allow the number 

 of such stations to be lessened. It will 

 not; become less, if their value is truly 

 recognised. Those who do recognise it 

 will, on the contrary, desire that the 

 possibilities of good through them are 

 made increasingly larger. 



It is to be kept in mind that Nature 

 does not respond to attempts to hasten 

 the giving up of her secrets. Their slow 

 discovery allows time for the rejection 

 of mistaken ideas, and therefore for the 

 better use of them when they are 

 no longer hidden. One of these— the 

 manner in which leguminous plants 

 obtain nitrogen from the air — was first 

 investigated reasonably by Boussin 

 gault, but it was not made plain until 

 sixty three years later. There are 

 others, of equally far-reaching import- 

 ance, awaiting discovery ; and mankind 

 cannot afford to stop to count the annual 

 cost of the attempts to find them out — 

 far less, through impatience to decrease 

 the means by which they are brought 

 to light. 



THE COMMERCIAL MUSEUM, 

 PHILADELPHIA. 



The Philadelphia Museum, perhaps 

 more generally known by the title of 

 Commercial Museum from one of its com- 

 ponent departments, is a city institution 

 occupying a large tract of land east of 

 Thirty-fourth street below Spruce in 

 West Philadelphia, on which have been 

 erected during the past ten years a group 

 of permanent museum buildings which, 

 although still unfinished, gives promise 

 upon completion of taking a leading 

 place among such institutions the world 

 over. 



The Philadelphia Museums, in plan and 

 puipose, comprise a group of museums, 

 educational and commercial, material 

 for which is being gathered and the in- 

 stitution developed by a Board of Trus- 

 trees created by the City Councils of 

 Philadelphia, and responsible to the 

 Mayor, 



