Agricultural research 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Johnson to make the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station of practical benefit to farmers are obvious to every one who inquires into the character of the work done there, or who will peruse a series of the reports of the institution. These reports are consistently animated by the single thought of those particular features of agricultural science in which the farmers are most immediately interested. One of the predominant crops of the State is grass; the thing the farmers most need to make their agriculture profitable is economical and efficient fertilizers. ”

“ Education for soil conservation, sponsored by the Washington State Planning Council, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the Washington Agricultural Experiment Station at Pullman, is leading to crop rotation for the renewal of fertility, the use of forage crops to check erosion, and the construction of earthworks and concrete dams in denuded areas. In eastern Washington, wheat production is being curtailed and the rolling hilltops and blown areas returned to grass. Test farming is conducted on a large scale at the experiment station at Pullman. ”

“ Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture produce about 10,000 research papers a year, with several thousand more written by outside scientists funded by USDA. The department believes that open access to agricultural research could cut in half the time required to produce plant varieties with desirable traits, such as resistance to drought or pests. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Irrigation certainly furnishes the ideal method for raising a varied crop, giving each crop individual treatment, serving each of thirty varieties of plants and trees with just the amount of daily moisture they individually need, so as to produce maximum products. [Pg 107] No wonder three crops in a year sometimes result, and sometimes five crops of alfalfa in the Southwest. Here we come to the highest development of intensive farming where the utmost value of agricultural science has free play and rivals the results of research and skill in any other line of human effort. ”

“ 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 department of agriculture is fairly well staffed, but at present is obliged to carry on its indoor work in four rooms in the basement of the chemical laboratory. The amount of research carried on by the staff has fully justified them in establishing the Journal of Agricultural Science, which appeared for the first time in 1904. This is the only periodical in the country devoted entirely to scientific agriculture. A laboratory for agriculture is a most pressing necessity ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is no exaggeration to say that the wealth of technical knowledge developed at these stations has enabled America's farmers to revolutionize the practice of agriculture and bettered life for millions of people the world over. The existence of these institutions and the abilities of the scientists trained there ensure that future generations will continue to enjoy the benefits of agricultural research. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It took ten years for the stations to organize their work and to gain the confidence of the farmers. At present however, they are looked upon with great favor by the farming class and are doing a magnificent work. Their function is that of research chiefly, although they attempt some control service, such as inspection of fertilizers, stock foods, etc. In research they aim both to study the more intricate scientific questions that relate to agriculture and to carry on experiments that are of more obvious and more immediate practical application to existing conditions in the various states. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Let us conduct a campaign for increased production, at least one more cavan of rice or corn per hectare of the’ thousands we are now cultivating. The plans are ad­vanced for the setting up of a fertilizer plant to encourage larger agricultural production. ”

“ It has now spread until it covers considerable area with forests, and information from the Hawaiian Experiment Station is to the effect that it is now the mainstay of the dairy industry of the island. The annual crop of four tons of big beans to the acre can be and is ground into a highly nutritious meal food selling at $25 a ton, an agriculture which, for ease of operation and richness of return, puts Illinois to shame, for, in addition to the $100 worth of animal food, there is a ton of wood per acre every year. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ We must extend the present facilities to educate our farmers in modern agricultural methods, such as the use of fertilizers, mechanical equipment seed selection, soil conservation, crop rotation, and other means to improve agricultural yields. ”

“ On these farms every advantage of machinery, and every discovery in agricultural science, should be utilised [140] to the utmost. The crops should be carefully chosen with reference to soil and aspect—cereals, fruit, vegetables—and the culture adapted to the crop, the one aim being to obtain the largest amount of produce with the least expenditure of human labor. Whether land is most profitably cultivated in large or small parcels depends on the crop; and in the great area of the County Farm, la grande et la petite culture might each have its place. ”

“ The service rendered in this way by a wise forest administration should not be underrated, since one of the most serious calamities of a famine—the want of cattle to cultivate the land—is thus, if not avoided, at any rate considerably reduced. During 1907 the government of India established a Research Institute, with six members engaged in collecting data regarding silviculture, forest botany, forest zoology, forest economics, working plans, and chemistry in connexion with forest produce and production. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Six State farms, at two of which apprentices are taken, have been established in as many widely separated districts to ascertain by experiment the crops and methods of cultivation most 129 suited to local conditions, and impart the results of their labours to the neighbouring farmers. Some of these farms have valuable stud flocks and dairy herds, from which settlers can obtain high-class stock. At Cairns tropical products are being tested and propagated at a State nursery. Useful educational work is also being done at the Sugar Experiment Station at Mackay. ”

“ The ordinary high-priced, manufactured, acidulated, so-called "complete" commercial fertilizers, in the small amounts that farmers can afford to use, and do use quite generally in the older states, serve in part as soil-stimulants and commonly leave the land poorer year by year; and if the farmers of the great Corn and Wheat Belts are ever to adopt systems of permanent agriculture, it must be done in the near future, or they too will awake to find their lands impoverished beyond self-redemption. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Under these conditions the area of land devoted to the several grain crops diminishes in ratio to that given to other crops, varied farming taking the place of the all-wheat or all-corn system. But by the introduction of intensive farming there is a steady improvement and increase in the quantity and the quality of the crops derived from a given area of soil. The wheat needed for home use will keep even with population for many years without any increase in area. ”