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ie: 
New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 5 
I desire at the outset to state that I have prepared this state- 
_ ment notas the director of the Experimental Station, which position 
I have but recently been called upon to assume, but rather as an 
outsider, an expert familiar for the past twenty-five years with the 
work which such Stations have been engaged in, and with the work 
which has been done during the six years of its existence at your 
Station by my predecessor, Dr. E. Lewis Sturtevant. 
Whatever of merit that work has belongs wholly to him and not 
to me, and I wish to state that under my administration, if it shall 
be continued, I have no thought to abandon, but rather to supple- 
ment the work which, in my best judgment, has been wisely 
planned and faithfully and economically carried forward. Please, 
therefore, consider what I may say as in the nature of expert 
_ testimony, and without personal bias. 
The First Napoleon declared that agriculture was the basis of all 
national prosperity. Everybody knows that when he set aside 
1,000,000 francs annually for the establishment and maintenance of 
six experiment stations for the development of the beet-sugar 
industry alone, he laid the foundation of an industry which to-day 
controls the markets of the world in this important commodity, 
and which has reduced the cost of beet-sugar from forty to less 
than three cents per pound. 
Everybody knows that it was the ambition of Frederick the 
Great to make his realm the foremost power in Europe. One hun- 
dred years ago his sagacity led him to appropriate $32,000,000. 
a year to the development of the agricultural resources of Prussia, 
and this, too, when his kingdom was small and impoverished. 
Every new disaster was met by some new expedient for 
strengthening the productive resources of the country. Just after 
the battle of Jena, when the territory of Prussia had been reduced 
to about half the former area, the famous school of Moeglin was 
founded. After the revolution of 1848, the department of agri- 
culture was placed under a special minister. After the battle of 
Sadowa the agricultural college of Leipsic was established, and 
$60,000 was given to provide scientific instruments and the appli- 
ances of instruction alone. To-day twenty professors in this 
institution devote their entire time to matters pertaining to 
agriculture. 
What are the results? A century ago much of Prussia was 
barren plains of sand, wild and absolutely unproductive ; more of 
