Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/366

352 they have perfect freedom in their actions so long as they adhere to the purpose of the law, still Congress very wisely established a central office, under the Department of Agriculture, to collect and publish summaries of station work and thought in condensed and popular form for the use of the public; to publish special bulletins for experiment-station workers; digests of station reports; monographs, etc., and in general to serve as a medium of information and exchange.

A movement which in fifteen years increased the number of regularly organized experiment stations in our own country from one to fifty; whose influence has extended to Canada, South America, Australia, and Japan, causing the establishment of similar stations in those countries; which this year will expend approximately $1,000,000 in the United States alone, exclusive of the work of the Department of Agriculture; which during the year will send bulletins direct to nearly 400,000 farmers; and whose workings have been kept, in the main, free from politics must have had a worthy object, efficient workers, and given practical and useful results. That such is the case none familiar with the investigations of at least the older stations can deny.

The science of agriculture must always be the mother of its art, and to aid the art through the study of the science agricultural experiment stations were established. They were started to conduct experiments upon plants and animals and the needs of both; to improve the useful ones and eradicate the harmful; to study their nutrition in all its phases and determine the chemical composition of their foods; to learn how to cure their diseases, and promote their health; and besides increasing their productiveness and the quality of their products by proper food and care, to also introduce new and valuable ones from other localities. They were intended to study fertilizers and fertilization; the vitality and germination of seed; the variability of soils and waters; rainfall and general climatic conditions; and other questions influencing rural economy. But this was not all, for their chief aim was to distribute information, and to help educate the occupants of our farms and plantations, giving new aims, zest, and ambition to their too often humdrum life. In short, the United States experiment stations aim to help the American farmer in mind and pocket.

The greatest obstacle which the stations have met has been a demand by the farmers for immediate results, and a prejudice against the laboratory and its work; but this gradually disappears as the farmers become more and more familiar with science. On this account the older stations are undoubtedly doing better work to-day than those of more recent origin, which are still struggling against this sentiment. Experience has taught, not only in Germany but here, that thoroughly scientific investigation invariably