Ra, 
ie 
2 [ASSEMBLY _ 
tensive drainage, artificial fertilizers, and generally in the acquirement 
of knowledge leading to higher skill in all the methods of their labor, 
Without doubt they have corrected many of their own faults in farm 
management, but they have not been able to ameliorate the conditions 
of their industry, except as individual skill and effort have wrought 
favorable change, the principal difficulties still existing, because ines 
vidual effort has been wholly inadequate to cope with them. 
Every advance has given clearer view of obstacles too great to over- 
come, except through | some form of organization by which there might 
be greater and general attainment of knowledge in all that constitutes 
the science of agriculture, and the requisite skill to make such knowl- 
edge available in farm practice. The various agricultural societies of 
the State, although useful in their respective fields, have been quite in- 
adequate to the correction of evils fastened upon an embarrassed in- 
dustry, assailed by forces mysterious in their origin and destructive in 
their work, devastating fields, decimating herds, blighting fruits and 
otherwise neutralizing the faithful labor of the husbandman who has 
thus to contend in the dark against increasing odds. In the various 
branches of physica] science in which intelligent practical agriculture 
must find direction there has been material advancement in the last 
few years, but it has not been general, Here and there a student, 
stimulated by unselfish enthusiasm, has engaged a careful research 
planned for the development of truth and his labors, pursued at great 
cost, perhaps, have been indeterminate, the results problematical, their 
application doubtful, because in all there has been no authoritative ex- 
pression supported by extended tests. 
‘These considerations having at last the force of unanswerable argu- 
ment favoring the establishment of a State Experiment Station atten- 
tion was given to the want, especially by the principal agricultural 
societies within the State, including the State Society, the State 
Grange, the American Institute Farmers’ Club, Central New York 
Farmers’ Club, Elmira Farmers’ Club and Western New York Horti- 
cultural Society, to which was added the influence of Cornell Univer- 
sity and the expressed desire of farmers throughout the State for a sta- 
tion where experimentation, supported by the public, might solve the 
thousand perplexing problems affecting the welfare of agricultural in- 
dustry. In compliance with this desire the Legislature of 1880 au- 
thorized the establishment of the New York Agricultural Experiment 
Station by an act passed June 26, 1880 (chapter 592), the work to 
be directed by a Board of Control, comprising ten members who were 
the executive officers of the agricultural societies already named, and, 
ex officio, the Governor of the State, and two others, to beelected afte1 
organization. Within the time prescribed in the act these members 
met in the executive chamber and effected organization preparatory to 
the election of two members to complete the board, and at a subse- 
quent meeting selected the two members, elected a president and a 
Secrétary, and. appointed a committee to report plan of operations. 
This committee, Robert J. Swan, President, and N. M. Curtis, Secre- 
tary of the boa rd, Wie As Armstrong and Richard Church (Messrs. 
Swan and Church, the two members appointed by the board unde 
provision of section two of the act), entered immediately on the 
work assigned, and after several meetings in which careful considera- 
“\ 
Po 
