Prof. Bessey says:

"Agriculture has been cursed by a greater amount of very poor work under the name of experiment, ation than any other of the great industries. Dealing as it does with the soil, the atmosphere, plants and animals, one would suppose that careful and expensive experiments would invariably be confided to men trained in one or more of the great modern sciences - chemistry, physics, botany, zoology, geology, meteorology. That such has, however, not been the case, is shown by an examination of the reports which have appeared with more or less regularity ever since the agricultural colleges and agricultural departments of the State universities were organized. With here and there an exception, such reports have contained nothing which was of any value to a scientific investigator in any field whatsoever".