Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871 [PAGE 322]

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314 Mr, Roberts—The matter of experiments President "Welch and I have been engaged in a good deal this summer; and I conceive that there is two much stress laid upon experiments as a group, or as bringing the result of the different experiments together for comparison. For instance, I find it very difficult in experimenting on our farm. Let me go back a little. Having lived in Henry county, I found that the climate was wonderfully different. It is so in our own State with experiments, frequently. The experiments of crops that we tried would not produce the same results as in my own county at home. And now I conceive that on our farm there, the soil is so very much different from the soil of Illinois there, where the college is situated—I mean taking the two farms, not the two different States in general—the soil of them is so different, and that soil is so very much different from the soil of Maine—the climate, and all things considered, will have such a different effect—that you do not learn much, you do not gain much. Now the experiments that are made on our farm there, will not apply to the whole State; much less to Illinois and Maine. And so, to a very great extent, each college has got to be an experimental college for its own State, or as much of it as possible. Now I find one great difficulty. I take a field and lay it off in plats for wheat, of two acres each. I find great difficulty in getting those different plats to operate alike, so that the results will amount to anything. One part of the field will do much better than the other part. There are certain things that can be learned, but it is my opinion that those experiments cannot be relied upon to give us a very wide range of certain knowledge. Besides this, there are a great many other things that may exercise an influence to make the crops different. There is the amount of the rainfall, the backwardness or forwardness of the spring, the temperature, etc. A storm this year spoiled our oatfield, and knocked our experiments almost all to pieces; blew the oats all over. So we have all these things to contend with. And it seems to me that it would be doing a wonderful work, if we could succeed in applying our experiments to our own States. Our agricultural papers, it seems to me, are the best, and perhaps the only means by which we can reach the end we want to reach. Professor Miles and I can be in weekly communication as to any experiments we are carrying on. Mr. Miles—The object of this resolution was to call out discussion, and get an expression of opinion. I now move to lay the resolution