Agricultural experiment station

“ The experiment station is also a prominent feature of the work of the department of agriculture. All new agricultural implements are tested and reports are furnished upon their merits; there are several seed-testing stations where farmers can secure at cost price, not only selected seeds, but seed shown by experiment to be suited to the climate and soil of their locality. ”

“ It may here be observed that the low average crop per acre of the United States has been due to the inclusion of wheat grown on land partially exhausted by cropping or not well adapted to this grain. The all-wheat as well as the all-cotton and all-tobacco methods of ignorant farming or cropping year after year are now very rapidly giving place to varied crops coupled with an increase of product per acre. No agency has been of such service in this matter as the Agricultural Experiment Stations, now established in almost every State under the supervision of men of the highest capacity. ”

“ Our plan is to bring home to the farmer the best method that has been determined by the agricultural college and experiment station. We want to get the best results from year to year and at the same time build up the soil. This can be done and this is scientific farming. This is what the whole world needs. The colleges of agriculture and experiment stations have gathered a vast fund of knowledge, and if this were put into practical operation it would double the yield of our farms within a few years and give us a large surplus for export and bring money into the country. ”

“ THE REORGANIZATION of American agriculture began with the passage of the Experiment Station Act in 1887. This act marked the beginning of a comprehensive and systematic application of experimental science to agriculture and was the signal for great activity in research work in all lines of agricultural endeavor. The Experiment Stations are really the foundation of the new agriculture. ”

“ Agricultural Experiment Stations in America have been modeled after those of Europe. Their aim is to advance agriculture as a science with special reference to local needs. The federal Department of Agriculture, founded by President Cleveland in 1889, includes an Office of Experiment Stations, which controls the funds that are expended on these stations in the United States, and administers the stations in Alaska, Hawaii and Porto Rico. ”

“ The fertilizing with artificial manures is entirely founded upon it, for it never could have become known if careful experiments in the laboratory had not shown what substances were necessary to each particular kind of plant. Consequently, all agricultural experiment stations are practically based on plant physiology. ”

“ It is not to be wondered at, then, that in a time when agricultural experimentation is attracting attention as never before, field experiments should be multiplied on every hand, and that the public should regard the making of them as one of the chief ends, if not the chief end, of experiment stations and experimental farms. ”

“ Too much water may check ventilation. Poor tillage may check root development. Unless the physical conditions are right the possible effects of additional plant food in the form of fertilizers are greatly diminished. The farmer who gets the largest return from fertilizers is the one who gives greatest attention to the physical properties of the soil. He makes use of organic matter and is very thorough in his methods of tillage. Every farmer should apply to his State Experiment Station for bulletins on the subject of fertilizers. ”

“ Furthermore, countless live stock farms exist where the practical utilization of these forages has been worked out in detail. In comparison, our stock of knowledge concerning Southern forages, both from experimental investigations and from practical experience, is relatively small. This is not surprising, because the experiment stations have very properly been compelled to devote their energies mainly to assisting agricultural industries in proportion to their existing importance, rather than to industries in which there was relatively little interest. ”

“ The activity of this bureau in organizing its work of propaganda and investigation, as indicated by Professor F. Lamson-Scribner's second annual report, has been mainly along the lines of establishing experiment stations and farms, studying the conditions surrounding the principal agricultural industries, the introduction of farm machinery and improved methods of culture, and the testing and distribution of introduced plants and seed.
Seven experiment stations and farms have been established for special branches of agriculture or in typical sections of the country. ”

“ A large number of stations are maintained by the Department over the arid and semiarid area for the purpose of studying special problems, many of which are maintained in connection with the state experiment stations. Nearly all the departmental experts engaged in dry-farm investigation have been drawn from the service of the state stations and in these stations had received their special training for their work. The United States Department of Agriculture has chosen to adopt a strong conservatism in the matter of dry-farming. ”

“ The leadership in the development of a science of dry-farming will probably remain with the United States for years, since the numerous experiment stations established for the study of the problems of farming without irrigation have their work well under way, while, with the exception of one or two stations in Russia and Canada, no other countries have experiment stations for the study of dry-farming in full operation. ”

“ The work at the Central Research Farm is intended to confer on agriculture the benefits of the most scientific advances by the prosecution of investigations and trials under practical and accurately-recorded conditions concerning problems involved in increasing the agricultural output. Attention will be given to improvement of wheat, soil renovation, fertilising and tillage methods, rotation of crops, &c. ”

“ The renovation of the soil by regular fertilizing is a lesson the wasteful West is slowly learning, coupled with scientific schemes of crop rotation to conserve the soil’s quality. Farmers are astonishingly slow to adopt these methods, however, thinking that they know best the needs of their own soil. The North Dakota experiment station is inducing farmers to adopt their advice as to seed selection and crop rotation with the promise to set aside five acres for experimentation in accordance with the advice given. ”

“ The experts on them plant several fields of, say, wheat and employ a different method with each. A record is kept of each field, and when the wheat is harvested, the yields are compared. The method that has produced the most bushels per acre is then recommended to wheat-growers where the soil conditions are similar.”
“Say, I wish the government would put you on the Boscow station, then a fellow could know what they were talking about without toting a dictionary round with him,” commented Jerry. “How can I tell if the subsoil is fit for dry-farming or not?” ”

“ The manufacturers of fertilizers comply with the law by printing on the bag or package the per cents of plant food in the fertilizers, and these statements in the great majority of cases agree favorably with the analyses of the experiment stations, but they do not in all cases state what materials were used to furnish the different kinds of plant food, and it is not always possible to find this out by analysis. ”

“ Private stations, of course, would be free from any limitations arising from lack of public appreciation, and, provided their means were adequate, might very appropriately devote themselves to the cultivation of agricultural science. It would seem, too, that agricultural colleges or even other institutions of learning, in view of their special interest in the educational aspect of the matter, might very properly establish stations for scientific investigations bearing on agriculture, as has been done by several German universities. ”

“ The land that grows heavy clover in a close rotation, or receives all the stable manure, may need neither nitrogen nor potash, while another field, hard-run by timothy and corn, may need a complete fertilizer. When a careful fertilizer test on land of only average productive power has been made, the owner has some definite knowledge of his soil that enables him to give more intelligent treatment to all his fields than was possible before the test had been made. ”

“ In fact, the soils of many of the older countries have been permanently injured by continuous cropping, with nothing returned, practiced through centuries. Even in many of the younger states, continuous cropping to wheat or other crops for a generation or less has resulted in a large decrease in the crop yield.
Practice and experiment have shown that such diminishing fertility may be retarded or wholly avoided, first, by so working or cultivating the soil as to set free much of the insoluble plant-food and, secondly, by returning to the soil all or part of the plant-food taken away. ”

“ Non-leguminous crops may also be plowed under for the purpose of adding organic matter and humus to the soil, though this has little advantage over the present method of heading the grain and plowing under the high stubble. The header system should be generally adopted on wheat dry-farms. On farms where corn is the chief crop, perhaps more importance needs to be given to the supply of organic matter and humus than on wheat farms. ”

“ A knowledge of what fertilizers are has led to a demand for information as to how they act, and the most suitable method of using them, and the successes of science in this field have led to the inquiry whether the feeding of animals may not derive as much benefit from it as the feeding of plants. It would be difficult to-day to find an intelligent farmer who is opposed to experiment stations, or who would have them limited in their operations to the analysis of fertilizers. ”

“ The departments of agriculture and rural affairs under the local people's governments shall encourage the agricultural producers to adopt farming practices such as combining crop planting with livestock and poultry breeding, crop rotation and fallow period for land that are favorable for soil contamination prevention, support the adoption of such practices as soil improvement and soil fertility improvement that are favorable for soil maintenance and cultivation, and support the construction of the facilities for treating and utilizing livestock and poultry excrement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the arid and semiarid regions it is now a commonly accepted doctrine that upon the expensive irrigated lands should be grown fruits, vegetables, sugar beets, and other intensive crops, while wheat, corn, and other grains and even much of the forage should be grown as extensive crops upon the non-irrigated or dry-farm lands. It is to be hoped that the time is near at hand when it will be a rarity to see grain grown upon irrigated soil, providing the climatic conditions permit the raising of more extensive crops. ”

“ Nearly every variety of wheat, corn, sorghum, rice, potatoes, grains and tubers, is being tested and tried on the 160 acres of land belonging to the station. Grapes, peaches, plums and other semi-tropical fruits are being planted, experimented with and carefully watched for results, while forage plants and grasses from South America, Africa, Australia, India, China, Europe and the United States are being tried, each under conditions approaching as nearly as possible those of its original habitat. ”

“ A given amount of plant-food is put upon the land, which is under a four-years' rotation. One half of it is applied every second year. The corn gets one half because it can use it to advantage. The oat crop that follows finds enough fertility because the soil is good. Next in the rotation is the wheat, and the wheat and timothy and clover plants can use fertilizer with profit. There is no change in its character because it is the soil that is getting the assistance, and not primarily just one crop in a rotation. ”

“ In this way the cultivated ground on the farm, has been entirely freed from weeds. As a result, the yield of crops has been largely increased, while the labor of cultivation has been correspondingly reduced. That back-aching work of hoeing, has been almost entirely dispensed with. Machine culture does the work.
"The great advantage gained by cropping soil free from weeds, is most apparent in case of wheat culture. In such soils, the wheat can be deeply sown by the drill, beyond the reach of predatory birds. ”

“ They have long realized that much time is required to transform organic matter into forms available for plant food and although they are the heaviest users in the world, the largest portion of this organic matter is predigested with soil or subsoil before it is applied to their fields, and at an enormous cost of human time and labor, but it practically lengthens their growing season and enables them to adopt a system of multiple cropping which would not otherwise be possible. ”