Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1894-08-02

70, 1884,
do not believe that the president Of the
board has given you the right name for
this talk which | shall present to you this
afternoon. | know that | am interested
enough in the subject and that the sub
ject is large enough TO occupy the best
brains Of anybody; but 1t is impossible to
cram into the few minutes that | have
TO talk 10 you this afternoon my best
thoughts, and my best thoughts are far
from being an intellectual feast. The sub
ject was suggested by the secretary of
the board with n view Of covering the
whole question of experiments in agricul-
ture. II it takes an hour to talk about
one little chinch bug, how long ought it to
take TO cover this whole teldY You will
pardon me, then, if give you but little
more than bare catalogue of expert
ments that are likely to be undertaken or
in progress in various localities, of in
terest 10 all farmers, bearing upon the
question that is suggested by the title,
"Experiments for Farmers and by Farm
ers"
OF cours, all farming is, to a certain
extent experimental. There are no two
seasons alike; there are no two persons
handling crops alike in their methods of
thinking and working. Every man Of you
knows that when you step out upon your
farm to plan for the year you enter upon
line of experiment. You to-day, in re-
porting your experiences in past time, are
also conf occurring what must be the con
clusions from those experiments which you
have already tried, and which you call
your experience, with reference to your
own future and very few of you propose
to do again exactly the same thing that
you have done in the past, Thus, you are
constantly perimenting. A neighbor of
mine-a would be farmer, | suppose
ought to call him says, that with him
farming is pure gambling; that every
spring he sows his seed with the chances
that something may come back to him.
You do not call him farmer, simply be-
cause he is not studying the field in which
he is at work - because he is not aiming
to grow into the conditions in which he
finds himself, but with him it is "pure
gambling" To certain extent there is
chance in every effort Of yours, in every
effort of mine; but, so far as we can study
the processes, so far we can come to gen
eral conclusions, and adapt our practices
to those conclusions. Yet the distinction
is so evident between experiments for
farmers and experiments By farmers, that
it has been accepted in the past.
The whole growth of experiment sta
tions the world over has been founded
upon this possible distinction, that there
are multitudes of lines of experiment
which require the constant attention of a
single brain, with a constant training to
that purpose, All experiments on such
lines for farmers must be undertaken by
experts; by persons who can be trained in
observation. You must have seen a nota-
BILE example of this to-day; you saw
notable examples of it yesterday, of the
necessity of expert knowledge to find the
way. The extraordinarily clear and forci-
BILE lecture of yesterday, with reference to
the circulation of water in soils, is the re-
suit of constant attention of man to that
point alone in his work. You could not
do it; could not do it, and some of us
had doubt whether we could see the results
ally measured the surface upon the grains
in a cubic foot of soil, so that he states
positively the amount of grain surface
found in any quantity of soil Did you
know that there we're $4,000 feet of surface
in cubic foot of soil? Now, that cannot be
learned and known without attention; it
cannot be learned without growth; it can
not be carried into further Investigations
without experience in the very line in
which we expect experiments to be tried,
l propose this afternoon to run very
rapidly, and perhaps somewhat carelessly
with regard to order, over series of ex-
periments which require something of the
knowledge of the xpert-sOmething of
special knOwledge-in order that the work
may be successfully carried forward and
results obtained that cannot be doubted
by any one of you. For many of these,
any good, intelligent farmer might train
himself; but by that training, he would
become an expert. By the attention which
he pays to one particular line of growth,
he must become an expert among his fell
lows; and would be advanced here, in this
Board of Agriculture, to position of au-
thority, because of his expert knowledge
of the particular line of work.
In most of these experiments, there is
more needed, indeed, than simple observa-
tion. There is training of a certain line
of powers-a certain power of inq uisition,
if may so call it, into all the questions
that come up for study and solution
There is a multitude of questions in these
A,Ot 40 hnv nk
in experience can possibly solve, as was so
we'll illustrated here yesterday. There are,
in entomology, hosts of questions in which
nobody can see the results of inquiry I'M
til he has qualified himself by broad train
ing in the field of entomology. There are
things which can be entrusted to the cheap
man, as was suggested here to-day by
Chancellor Snow: the mere execution Of
we'll. defined and well-settled principles in
the fields of science. These can be done
by anybody; but the inquiry, the actual
investigation and the results must be
reached by chancellor. Only the man
who has given attention to the details of
such things can find out the way to actual
success.
Now, bear with me patiently, if 1 emu
merate an almost bare catalogue of ques-
tions that may suggest variety of
experiments. First and most obvious,
perhaps, of experiments are variety tests;
tests of varieties of all kinds. Their num-
Der is enormous. We can show you at the
Agricultural College $50 varieties of wheat
grown for our tests. We have tried, and
can show you, 300 varieties of potatoes,
whose differences are distinct, easily no.
ticed and marked by one familiar with the
subject. There is an immense number of
varieties to be tested in every line of
growth-in the grains, in the grasses, in