REPORT OF ASSISTANT DAIRY INSTRUCTOR. 2/ 



question which sooner or later will have to be faced : Shall 

 Aroostook county, with its large shipments, where the work 

 can be done at a less cost than five cents per barrel, be com- 

 pelled to pay this sum in order that the work can balance up 

 for the state as a whole ? It is very evident that the cost of 

 the work outside of Aroostook county will considerably exceed 

 the five cents per barrel sack. Either this will have to be 

 made a uniform price of five cents per barrel sack all over the 

 state, or those outside of Aroostook county will have to pay 

 considerably more, if the work in Aroostook county is done 

 at the actual cost there. I feel that whatever is done should 

 be done along lines to allow the small grower an equal chance 

 with the large grower. The idea should be to put Maine's 

 certified seed, no matter from what section of the state it may 

 be shipped, on the highest possible plane and, with this end 

 in view, the benefits of agriculture of the state, as a whole, 

 should be the guiding motive. 



If the fees charged for the field and final inspection work 

 were sufficient to make this work self-sustaining, there is still 

 an urgent demand for an appropriation to be used in conducting 

 this work. Inspectors have to be sent out and their expenses 

 paid before there are collections of any amount coming in to 

 carry on the work. In other words, we cannot collect for 

 work promised, but must collect for work done. As a rule, the 

 inspectors are active young men who are taking a course in the 

 agricultural college and who intend to make plant pathology 

 their life work. Many of these young men are working their 

 way through college and have but little ready money to use at 

 the beginning of the season's work and a month's expense, 

 with team hire and travel, often amounts to considerably over 

 $3 per day. Unless some method is worked out, whereby the 

 Department can have funds especially designed for this pur- 

 pose, the work is apt to suffer at the very time it should be 

 pushed most vigorously, and I recommend that the legislature 

 be asked for a sum of $i,ooo for the year 191 7 and $1,500 for 

 the year 1918, for field inspection work alone ; and it is expected 

 that this amount would be turned back into the State Treasury 

 at the close of the year's work. It would seem advisable that 

 the legislature be asked to put this work under a Bureau in 



