The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1909-12-30
SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE.

In recent address delivered before
the New Hampshire State Grange by
Ernest Fox Nichols, the new president
of Dartmouth College, some ideas were
expressed regarding the future of AM
erican agriculture that deserve wide
publicity. President Nichols said in
part:
In the scientific aspects of farming,
present and future, we come to that
part of the discussion which deals
with factors which are revolutioniZ-
ing agriculture. | am not speaking
unguardedly when | say the future of
agriculture is making today inside the
walls of the science research labora-
atory. Out of these surroundings
have come the modern sciences of
medicine and engineering. The great
er part of the Industrial prosperity of
this country and Europe has come
from the intelligent application of
principles earlier discovered in the
research laboratory.
The applications of science to agri-
culture are both broader and more
complex than in either medicine or
engineering, manufactures or trans
portation, hence they are appearing
later, and scientific agriculture is still
In it's infancy. 1t is still an art striv-
ing in few hands, to become a
science. aaFsa ~s''> ssS
In replying to the question what
more than a generation, drawn the
most enterprising young men away
q m ntf 7
! believe it has been the increasing
opportunities of city growth, due
mainly to the application of science to
engineering. to manufacturing meth
DDS, to problems of transportation and
expanding trade involving the appli-
cation of the principles of economic
science and business methods. When
we begin more earnestly to apply the
principles of a more highly develop
ed science to farming, opportunities
for trained young men on the farm
will rival the past opportunities of
the city and counter current will
set in
at is fact of deep significance
that the same decade, in which the
homestead act became law. saw the
massage of the Morrill, bill granting
ito ever State and Territory large
tracts Of land. the income from which
was to he used to establish agricul-
tural colleges. and support the teach
ing of the applications of science to
farming. Fortunately our central gov
eminent did not stop there but has
been mourning an ever increasing sum
of money each year into a scientific
denartment of agriculture at Wash
I fre BON tn1. I. no
ment of European nations and a model
4 for the world.
THE small farmer of today should
be keenly on the alert that when agri-
culture advances as a profession it
does not leave him behind it through
conservatism in clinging to antiquated
and wasteful methods, through preiu-
dice against applied science. This has
too often happened in other indus
tries. To save himself he should train
his intelligence. He should learn
physics. chemistry, biology and their
uses He should know economics and
be familiar with the problems of pro-
duction, transportation and taxation.
He should know how to utilize his by
products and cut down his wastes
"If we are to predict what Will
| prove W ne Lllt DtoI ipi q
ekillful farmer, we must go back a
| few years and see what changes have
occurred in our methods of training
men for their callings. How did a
man use to train himself for the prac-
! tice of medicine? He went from the
common school into a physicians Of
fee and read such medical books as
he could find there. During few
weeks each winter for two. or at most
three. years he heard lectures In a
medical school and then began to
PRO ctice his profession
"What is thought now the best med
teal training? The man must go
through school and college, go nine
months each wear for four years 10 n
graduate medical school, and then
srend one or more years in hosni-
tai to get practical eyperience. The
same words describe what has taken
nlace in the training OF LAWYERS and
engineers, except instead OF hospitai