 Atwater served as administrator of the trial run from 1875 until 1877 with initial research focused on fertilizers.Before the two year trial was over, the Connecticut legislature agreed to regular funding of the station but had decided to move the permanent Connecticut Experiment Station to the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale with Samuel Johnson as first director.During this time, Atwater wrote numerous articles for scientific periodicals detailing his research and findings in physiological and agricultural chemistry and on research being conducted abroad (specifically in Germany).