The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-09-11
BETTER FARMING IDEAS,
Aids to Scientific Agriculture
Now Offered by the State
University.
WISDOM FOR OUR YOUNG MEN.
Something About the Equipment
Furnished by the State to Help
Solve Vexing Problems.

| The day has passed when we have need
| to inquire. what can California produce?
| From this time on our study must be what
we can raise at profit. Too much has
seldom been said as to our capacity for
| production, but the errors of farmers have
| been constant in assuming that a large
product meant large income. The fruit
trade of California, for example, is and will
remain of incalculable advantage to the
| State, but the amount of capital sunk in
| unwise investments in orchards is appall-
ing, and is. more than any other one factor,
| the local cause of such financial trouble as
! we endure.
| We have run to crazes in this State.
! tum bling over each other in our eagerness
| to be first in all new enterprises, with the
inevitable result of failure by large num-
bers of individuals. The prosperity of the
State requires that this headlong method
| of exploiting our natural resources be now
definitely stopped. 1t requires that the
future development of the agricultural in
terests of the State proceed on the same
cool headed lines of investigation and ex-
| pertinent which great capitalists follow in
| making investments.
In pursuing this development two things
must be constantly kept in mind. One is
our distance from the great centers OF con-
suming population which, even after the
pressure of events has squeezed all the
water-and perhaps much of the actual in
vestment-out of the capitalization of our
| overland freight routes, will still always be
q serious handicap to an enterprise. 1t
does cost money to move our bulky prod
ucts to the Mississippi Valley and always
will. To meet this we must constantly
seek to find products which can be shipped
in a concentrated form or which in their
| natural state represent the largest possible
value to given bulk. In the second place,
we must constantly seek for profitable
| forms of diversified agriculture. In this,
also, We are handicapped as well as bene-
| fitted by the peculiarities of our climate.
The rotation of grain, perennial grasses and
hoed crops, which are common IN the East,
| is impossible in our rainless summers, and
| extensive experiments are required to de-
| termine by what methods we can most
proftably produce, first that which can
| be consumed on the farm, and, second,
| that which can be consumed in the State,
thus eliminating to the greatest extent
that is possible the cost of transportation
| as affecting our products.
! Toward the accomplishment of these
ends we have ready to our hands the mag
nifcent agency of the College of Agricul-
| ture of the University of California with
its seven experiment stations, called into
| being by the wise craftsmanship of our
| State and National authorities.
| 1t is evident that people accustomed,
| as the American settlers of California have
| been, to the agricultural operations of the
Eastern climate must have been all at sea
| as TO the best methods of cultivation when
| suddenly transplanted to a climate of rain
| less summers. Our possibilities in grain
were early discovered and made use of, but
| beyond that our agricultural progress has
| Of I'M orah 10 b11f
necessary experiments. And as to these it
was, of course, noted at once that if per-
| mitted to be wholly carried on by private
enterprise the majority of experiments
would be made by unqualified or not we'll
| qualified men, mperfectly conducted, and
even when successful would have little value
or authority except with the experimenter
himself. In the early seventies, there
| fore, the efforts of agriculturists resulted
in regular appropriations both by the
State and the Regents of the university for
| the prosecution of this work, which has
had from the beginning the advantage of
the continuous, competent direction of one
mind in the person OF Professor f. w. Hill
gard, assisted by an able and devoted
staff. In this, as in other matters the
young State OF California has been a pio-
neer among the States of the Union. In
equipment, organization, variety of work
and value of results we still stand at
|
case, since in no other State was there
such variety of problems pressing for i'm
mediate solution.
In 1887, after California had been for
some eight or ten years engaged in this
work, Congress passed an act commonly
known, from its author, as the Hatch
law" making an annual appropriation of
$4,000 to each State in the Union to be ex-
pended, under the direction of the
State, in the maintenance of expert
ment stations. From this fund the ex-
| penses of the experiment stations, as such,
are mainly or wholly met. In addition to
this Congressional appropriation there is
| maintained, at the expense of the univer-
! sity, for the direct benefit of farmers, an
| extensive and costly system Of laboratory
work, including buildings, instruments.
| appliances, material and staff, all of
| which is at the service of any individual of
| the State. Here the farmer may determine
the character of the soil, the value of fer
| tiliZeTs, the cause and nature OF any plant
diseases which may appear and the RENE
/ dies therefor, if known or discoverable,
the best method of dealing with destruc-
| tive insects and in short to bestow any
service which science can render toward
making the income from the farm greater
than the outgo. In addition to this work
| performed at the stations and the labora-
tory, the faculty of the college is placed
constantly at the service of the farmers for
instruction at farmers Institutes and SIM
liar assemblies, thus bringing at least
snatches of the best scientific information
of the day to their very doors.
| All this service of the university and its
stations costs money, which is supplied by
the people and from which the people
should derive more benefit than they now
do; not that this magnificent service is
not well appreciated by our best farmers,
for it is. The correspondence is very
large and the work of the staff of the agri-
cultural college goes right on the year
round. the professors and instructors
being practically deprived of the period of
vacation which all other teachers the
world over are accustomed to enjoy. But
while the best farmers appreciate the SER
vice and in great measure secure its adj
vantages, the great majority who are not
the best farmers know little about it and