UIHistories Project: A History of the University of Illinois by Kalev Leetaru
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Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871 [PAGE 231]

Caption: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871
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228 results are; but he is concerned simply in the changes taking place in the matter which he is investigating. Now, if we attempt to combinej or rather if we confuse these two terms in our experiments, we shall not meet with the success that we ought to expect from a systematic effort at improvement. Field experiments—experiments in the cultivation of different crops, the application of manures, analysis of soils, feeding of animals—all have to do with the art. "We are simply making methodical hints for the sake of getting at rules to guide us practically. The scientific man may step in and make his investigation for the sole purpose of explaining these principles, or rules, which guide us in practice. Now, I apprehend at the present time no one can claim that we have any rules of practice that are derived from the teaching of science. I know of none in the art of agriculture. The rules of practice have been derived from experience and observation. The world of science has stepped in and explained these rules. The rule is of no more force in practice than it was before. It simply serves to suggest new lines of inquiry for future experiments. On the start it seems to me important that we make this clear distinction in regard to the experiments we would make. In the next place I will speak briefly of some of the difficulties—I alluded briefly to that this forenoon—in the way of successful experimentation, and in this discussion I wish to be understood as limiting my remarks entirely to those experiments which we inaugurate for the purpose of improving our practice—experiments for the improvement of the art. In the first place, we have a great variation of soils. Unfortunately they are variations we are not able to detect except by experimental trials—soils apparently similar, so far as their compositions are concerned, and so far as their physical characters are concerned, give very different results. In the experiments at the Michigan Agricultural College this was one of the most striking points brought out by our first experiment. Ordinarily field experiments have been conducted by taking a single manured plat, and then comparing with it different plats to which had been applied different varieties of manure. The experiment was supposed to be complete. The comparison of the unmanured plat with the manured plat would apparently give an indication of the result. But such experiments misled us. We found on quite a number of unmanured plats, on soils precisely alike, so far as we could judge of their character and composition, a very great difference in yield, Peculiarities of climate and seasons will have much to do with varying the experiment, and this seems to be one reason