LVIII REPOET OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. 



ments with plants; experiments with hybrid orange trees; the culture 

 of dates, tea, and tobacco; planting of forest trees; investigations on 

 the nutrition of farm animals and of man; investigations with refer- 

 ence to the efi'cct of feeding stuifs on the chemical composition and 

 ph3^sical character of butter; studies of diseases of plants and animals; 

 studies of alkali soils and seepage; the survey and mapping of soils; 

 and irrigation investigations. 



The cooperative enterprises in which the Department and stations 

 are engaged have not onl}^ increased in number but also in scope and 

 variety. Besides the more formal enterprises which involve the 

 expenditure of more or less mone^' on l)oth sides, there are many 

 minor ways in which the officers of the Department and the stations 

 are helping each other. The Department has thus been brought into 

 much closer relations with the stations. 



The stations are becoming more alive to the advantages of such 

 cooperation, and are therefore more willing to engage in it under 

 proper conditions. They see in this a way to extend and make more 

 efficient the investigations in which they are themselves already 

 engaged, and also to undertake certain lines of work much needed in 

 their respective regions, from which they have hithci-to been debarred 

 from lack of funds. By a more intimate association with the Depart- 

 ment on terms which recognize their autonom}^ and local authority, 

 they generally believe that greater stabilit}^ may be secured for their 

 operations and an increased measure of influence may be obtained with 

 their own constituencies. 



Questions relating to the more efficient organization of these cooper- 

 ative enterprises have engaged the attention of the officers of both the 

 Department and the stations during the past year, and with the estab- 

 lishment of a lixed policy regarding this work and its more thorough 

 organization, it is believed that it may be greatly extended, and thereby 

 the efficiencj^of both the Department and the stations, as organizations 

 for the improvement of our agriculture, may be greatly increased. 



The policy pursued by (Congress in recent years of giving this 

 Department funds for special investigations to be carried on in cooper- 

 ation with the stations has proved an economical means of conducting 

 such investigations as are of general rather than local usefulness, and 

 has alreadj'^ secured results of great practical value. 



EXPERIMENTS IN COOPERATION WITH FARMERS. 



The number and imjiortance of the experiments which the stations 

 are conducting in cooperation with practical farmers and horticultur- 

 ists have greatly increased of late. Thousands of such experiments 

 are now annually conducted in the United States. These range all the 

 way from simple tests of varieties of plants to special experiments in 

 the management of farm or horticultural crops, live stock, or particu- 



