The Portland daily press., 1878-01-07
Systematic Experimeats.

Experience is the only source of scientific
agricultural knowledge, and this can be OBJ
tanned only by a long series of observations
and experiments carried on, not by single
farmer or expermenter, but by many. Salts
factory deductions cannot be made through
experimenting in single locality; extended
experiments are needed, prosecuted in vari-
Gus sections and under various combinations,
America might be converted into one grand
experimental farm, If our different organiza-
tions, agricultural societies, farmers clubs.
Grange clubs, agricultural colleges and state
agricultural officials would establish pro-
gramme of action by which hundreds of farm
ers in each county throughout the country
might perform set of easy comparative ex.
periments at the same time, sending in the
results OF the same to recognized officials,
This isolate experience of individuals, per-
sued without design and reached without
method, are valueless, except in so far as they
show the possibilities of culture. The fact
that farmer has raised an extraordinary crop
OF grain or roots, or accidently and without
definite plan reared promising colt, lamb or
calf, proves nothing except that such things
can be done. 1t demonstrates that the diff.
ference between what is ordinarily accomp-
lished and that which is occasionally secured
leaves wide margin for profit, and opens the
mind to the desire for learning the reasons
necessary to produce most favorable results
at will.
If agriculture is ever to change its present
slow pace, and assume a degree of pr ogress
that shall attract alike the capital and labor
of the nation, it must be through coopera-
ton. Not by those visionary schemes which
seek to control the politics, the finances or
the transportation of this country, not by
those delusiVe attempts at mercantile and
manufacturing business, or at banking and
insurance, all of which are foreign to the
taste, the position, the education of the farm
er; but the future advance of the art must be
through the earnest, united, associated efforts
of hundreds and thousands of intelligent
cultivators, in attending to uniform directions
and plans for tilling the soil, and in register
ing results for future guidance.
Present perfection in cotton and wooden
machinery, in the locomotive, the steamship,
in the arts and science, has been attained by
his massing the collating, and reducing to prac
tice, the thoughts, Investigations and the ex-
periences of thousands of earnest workers
and thinkers. So must it be with agricul-
ture; the best results of the average exper-
fence this year must be accepted as the start
ing point, the stepping-stone to the future
ediiice of next years attainments. Nothing
should be lost; individual successes and fail
ures should be gathered in all their details
and aggregated to the general good. Through
organization and association much may be
accomplished in the direction of progress and
improvement. Dissemination among the
masses of such facts as might be deduced
from the accommodating testimony of thous-
ands persuing the same avocations would
prevent many false and unnecessary steps,
would direct labor and thought in the most
profitable channels, and would enable agri-
culture TO take the rank in business nre-
cision and systematic arrangement, with
other occupations.
This grand work must take its rise at the
fountain-head, among the practical farmers
themselves, at their village clubs. Ali great
movments have an humble Origin; great
structures are most securely raised stone by
stone and brick by brick. Indvd dual labor
must precede associated effort. The village
club is the forerunner of the country agricul-
tural Society, and finally State and national
aid may be invoked and shaped in proper
channels through the earnest, unselfish, per-
sistent efforts of active, legitimate, well-org-
anized farmers associations.