Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1870 [PAGE 27]

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XI

Hence, it has not been deemed desirable to attempt the collection of statistics until increased powers were given for their collection, by placing the collection of State statistics in the hands of the Corresponding Secretary, or of the State Auditor, or of a Commissioner of Statistics, and requiring such statistics, so far as industrial, at least, to be made a part of this report. In instituting experiments, we have to face some facts which we are assured by those of more experience, render experiment difficult. . Those who heard the lecture of Dr. Manly Miles, Professor of Agriculture in the Michigan Agricultural College, given at our last State Fair, on Experimental Agriculture, will remember how, himself an experimenter of many years experience, he warned his listeners of the lack of any value in nearly all the experiments hitherto made, from the want of care in the experimenter. To make experiments of any value requires skill and intelligence, great care in avoiding fallacies, singleness of purpose in any given experiment, and great accuracy of detail. This brings us to the conclusion that the kind of experiments wanted require skilled persons to conduct them, and demand more time and expense than many can or will afford, gratuitously. We are brought, in short, to the conclusion, that we should have Agricultural Experiment Stations, at the University and in different parts of the State where chemical, physiological, agricultural, and other observations and experiments can be carried on with uniformity, continuity and exactness. Each of these stations should comprise a tract of ground and suitable buildings, donated to the State for the purpose; and the State should grant an annual appropriation of $2,000 or $3,000 to each, to pay the salary of a suitable superintendent and the wages of laborers. For further information as to the v&lue of these Experiment Stations, I need only to refer to the testimony of such men as Liebig, Pugh and Johnson, who commend them as the best means yet discovered for forwarding agricultural investigation. In view of difficulties such as these, and of the insufficient means for doing all that it was desirable to do, I have been expected to confine the expenditure for collecting material for my annual report to a limited amount, and have had to depend upon circulars and the Annual Agricultural Lectures and Discussions in different parts of the State for such facts of experience as are