National and Educational Interests. 



75 



northern part of Japan and Korea there exist native varieties 

 of the persimmon which will endure as great a degree of cold 

 as the wild persimmon of this country, and the Division is 

 now^feng efforts to secure them. 



2. Horticultural Work of the Experiment Stations. 



The experiment stations, established under act of Congress, 

 are for the most part completely organized. It is yet too 

 early to expect much original work of a high character, for 

 the enterprise is not yet three years old,* and most of the 

 stations have been obliged to start with unskilled staffs, and 

 in the face of ignorance and misapprehension. Necessarily a 

 conspicuous part of the work so far done has been of a some- 

 what temporary nature, but it has gratified public desire and 

 has given assurance that activity and enterprise characterize 

 the stations. It is probable that much of this energy of ex- 

 periment will soon subside, but there will no doubt be a cor- 

 responding elevation in the character of work undertaken. 

 There is an unfortunate common misapprehension, which of- 

 ten assumes the form of a carping criticism, that all experi- 

 ment performed by the stations should be new. It is no part 

 of the national law nor of the opinions of those who have had 

 much to do in shaping the policy of the stations, that all the 

 work should be novel in its character. The stations are 

 created, in the language of the law, "in order to aid in acquir- 

 ing and diffusing among the people of the United States use- 

 ful and practical information on subjects connected with agri- 

 culture, and to promote scientific investigation and experiment 

 respecting the principles and applications of agricultural 

 science." Because a certain problem has been well investi- 

 gated in Germany or France is no reason why it may not be 

 studied here, even under similar conditions and applications. 

 Some of the most useful studies are those which repeat old ex- 

 periments or which afford new illustrations of well known 

 facts. The stations exist primarily to instruct the farmer, 

 not to advance science in the abstract. When it so happens 

 that the experimenter can afford useful instruction and at the 

 same time add a new law or fact to the sum of knowledge, he 



*The Hatch bill was signed by President Cleveland on March 2, 1887. 



