The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1895-11-13
Changes That Are Occurring
Always.
OF KNOWLEDGE.
Farming of IA Decade Ago-EXpcrimentS
and EXperimentation-Wh EIec-
tricity Has Done and VIII Do-Im-
portance eff Public stations, Etc.

During Professor Maxwell's con-
nection with the Louisiana expert
ment station he was requested to
prepare a general resume of the
work done by these stations, in or
der to place the Importance of the
experimental work before the pub
lie. The following, from Professor
Maxwells address, will be read
with interest in the country where
the necessity of more experimental
investigation is constantly becom-
ing more evident:
Mr.. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GEN
TLEMEN:-TOday the most arduOus
work of men who are laborng to
make themselves equal to the posi-
tiOn in which they are placed is the
getting and ecOnomiziDg of knowl-
edge, and of such knowledge as their
duties and liberal career require.
The demands imposed upon those
who, by selection of nature or the APP
pOintment of their fellows, are chosen
for particular work are usually not
only precise, they are prodigious al
most TO oppression. For, in the gen.
eral progress of things, with the in
creased scope of the individual, the
fields of knowledge, and the opera
tiOns of men are coDverging more and
more into one universal plane; and
these make a broad intelligence and
vast effort incumbent on such as are
called to direct in any specific course.
rR,S l.. hn III Il ri nd
composed of the immensities and mys-
teries of the unknown. 1t has been
almost wholly traversed and explored;
the surfaces above water are nearly
allotted and possessed, and not only
for the scientist is there no new coun-
try left to discover, also, as Bismarck
has pathetically complained, there is
nothing left to annex. Sphere is
drawn to sphere, and by the magniti-
cent acts of steam, and the still voice
of the electric current, the distances
between lands are annulled. And
what do we behold today? The wheat
broker in New York, sitting leisurely
over breakfast, asks for the "opening
prices" on Mark Lane before he wires
his agent the values of grain beyond
the Mississippi. And by this binding
together of the peoples OF the globe with
the cord of universal knowledge each
nation is brought into competition, as
well as into bond, with its neighbOr,
and that country, as likewise tue indi-
vidual who fails to act upon this union
of conditions - who neglects to in
quire and to know, must soon be re-
legated to the train of defunct things
which progress is leaving behind.
We, however, are considering the
subject of agricultural inquiry, and
for the present shall leave aside the
matters of more universal concern and
concentrate attention upon the inter
ests of the farm.
Away back in the shade of the pres
eBt generation the possibilities and
modes of the tilIers of the soil were of
another order than those of today.
Then the agriculture was what the
Germans call natural culture (n0tuT
cuLtur). The land was ploughed
and sown, the harvest was gathered,
and only the refuse of one crop was
known of as a means of fertilization
for the following. The magic power
of the artificial fertilizer had not yet
announced the intensive culture of
the present. In those days there were
few journals of agriculture and no sta
ton bulletins. The magnates of the
land exchanged experiences in the
management of estates during the
season of visits and social Interchange,
and the farmers talked of crops and Of
cattle on market days or under the
shade by the church on Sundays.
But, Mr.. President, we will not dis
miss, with brief definition, the peri
od of a generation ago. Let US recOl-
lect the native intelligence and force
which imbued the enterprises that
arose IN agriculture several decades
ago; and also consider their relation
to the movements of today. Today
we hear of stations and Experimental
ton, aud most fortunate it is for the
bread-seeking world that we DO. But
were there no perimenters, and was
there no EXPERIMENTATION those de-
cades ago? Each individual farmer
who applied his observation to note
the visible variations in his land, and
the kinds of crops adapted to those
variations; the men who first called
attention to the breeds which produce
milk, and those which make beef; and
others who blended their fiocks both
for wool and for mutton, those were
the experimenters of generation
ago. Those years ago experimental
ton was not corporate; it was indi-
vidual, and every man who produced
a fresh variety, or established a new
cross, was an experimenter and