Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/374

360 the vegetable products into marketable animal products, and the efficient distribution of the required labor throughout the year in accordance with strict business principles.

In order to realize the full benefits of efforts to improve the practice of agriculture in this direction, the increase and diffusion of knowledge relating to the applications of science in practice must be promoted and encouraged as an essential element of success. There has never been a time when the advantages of agricultural education were so clearly apparent, or the conditions of practice so favorable for the general recognition of the practical value of a knowledge of science.

Under this encouraging aspect of the times, the agricultural colleges of the country can now be made to command a dominant influence in developing an improved system of agriculture, by conducting their practical departments on a higher plane, that will fully supplement and emphasize the economic value of the class-room instruction in science, so that farmers may look to them with a reasonable expectation of obtaining the information needed in planning the best systems of practice.

A course of instruction in practical agriculture can not be consistently confined to the limited range of the established routine of farm-work, but it must be supplemented and widened by a full discussion of the applications of science in every process of the art, and the practicable means of making them available sources of profit. The labor system must likewise be made to contribute its share to the leading purpose, it should have in common with other departments, of developing in the student correct habits of observation and investigation, and he should be made to trace, in every detail of farm-work, illustrations of the principles taught in the class-room, so that he may acquire a proper appreciation of the intimate and legitimate relations of practice and science.

The sciences relating to agriculture have already made sufficient progress to place the leading principles of farm economy on a consistent basis, and they serve as a safe guide in tracing the lines of future progress, or the direction, at least, in which improvements in agriculture may be made; but there are, as yet, many unexplained details that need further experimental investigation. The invaluable experiments made at Rothamsted during the past forty years have fortunately laid the foundation of a consistent system for utilizing the residues of the farm; but it must be admitted that, aside from these admirable researches, there are few, if any, experiments on record that are of practical interest in this direction. The importance of additional experiments on the lines of investigation so successfully followed at Rothamsted can hardly be overestimated.