The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-05-23
Farmers Should Experiment.

IL would prove most serious misfortune
if the multiplication of experimental farm
stations should result in farmers generally
ceasing to conduct careful experiments Of
their own, says the American CuLtiuator.
To take knowledge as second hand in often
times necessary, but it should be revised in
the light of personal experience. and thus
digested it becomes valuable. No expert
mental station can satisfy the local condi-
tons of every farmer. The results of each
are only valuable as suggestions to farmers
whereby they can personally conduct SINH
lar experiments il successful or avoid those
which have been officially discredited. 1t
is this use of experimental stations that
makes them important aids to good farm
ing, scarcely less so, and with the same limi-
tations as the experience of farmers re-
ported in agricultural newspapers.
In one sense farmers are experimenting
all the time. What are called old ruts are
practices which long experience has shown
to be at least safe. Often, under new con-
ditions, farmers may vary from these
beaten paths, and it is part of the business
OF experimental stations to show where this
may best be done.
But farmers who study their work are
constantly finding new suggestions which
are well worth trial, yet are not likely to
occurr to scientists who from their labora-
tories prepare the subjects for the expert
ments to be made.
In such cases a letter from the farmer to
the experimental farms in his state may
often suggest experiments of greatest value,
which in some of their aspects the farmer
is not himself able to conduct. What he
can do is TO show the practical working of
the experiment in leSSening or increasing
the crop, and whether the latter be done at
profit or loss. The station can give him
chemical analyses of fertilizers and crops
that will throw additional light on what the
farmer has practically done.
Many important discoveries have been
made in their business by practical farmers.
More will be II the efforts Of government to
aid them are accepted as aids rather than as
substitutes for individual thought ard ef-
fort.
Sometimes, indeed, the practical conclu-
sions of farmers have proved right. even
when for a time contradlcted by those of
scientific experts.
1t is now conceded as farmers have long
maintained that certain crops, as clover and
pease, have the power of taking nitrogen
from the atmosphere.
On the other hand, common idea of
farmers, that strawy manures furnished in
their decomposition carbon through the
ltuLS VI Pldulo 10 INV kSuSi 6AlH uDdnOODed.
rae value Of carbonic acid gas in the soil is
not disputed; put it is based on its power in
making other plant food available in the
iii. Tbs carbon of plants it is now gener-
ally conceded in absorbed from the air
through their leaves, rather than taken
through their roots.
The great advantage in making expert.
ments on the farm is that when successful
the farmer making them understands the
formula and how to conduct 1t to SUCCESS
full issue. No matter how plain the directions
given the farmer who has dore the thing
himself has mo confidence in repeating it
than he can have from the experience OF
another. He can also venture confidently
on a large scale, knowing that it is adapted
to his coil and conditions. 1t would be we'll
If farmers in each state would keep close
watch of at least all the experiments that
in their view promise success as made at the
stations.
In this way they would not only receive
benefit, but the work of the station dupli-
Gated under different conditions would be
widely recognized as authoritative, and
thus the course of improved farming meth
DDS would make far more rapid progress
than would be other wise possible.