128 American Horticultural Sociitij. 



the whole or a portion of the income due to its state under the land grant 

 act of lS(i2. 



There are several conceptions as to the work which experiment stations 

 should do in this country. The director of an institution of this nature, 

 which has received large grants of nioney, hut has yet produced hut meager 

 results, said, when asked why he did not issue bulletins of information upon 

 those subjects: 



" You say I ought to send out bulletins describing and illustrating the 

 Hessian ily, and what can be done to prevent it« ravages. Now, it is true 

 that such a bulletin would be of interest to farmers at this season [which 

 was in the midst of an attack of the fly], but what would my scientific friends, 

 the directors of other sUitions, think to receive such a bulletin of well-known 

 facts ? " 



We replied that it made no diflerence what the directors of other sta- 

 tions thought. The station in his state was for the benelit of the farmers in 

 that state. While it should do original and careful scientific work, it should 

 also be ever ready to give the information that farmers want. At that time 

 the best possible service it could have done would have been to issue as a 

 bulletin a complete illustrated history of the insect that was ravaging the 

 wheat crop, and what measures could be taken to prevent it, or what meas- 

 ures the farmers might pursue to guard against ita return in the future. 



To my mind work of this nature is the first duty of each and every ex- 

 periment station. It should be a bureau of information, where, upon appli- 

 cation and without cost, the farmers of the state could secure full knowledge 

 so far as it was obtainable upon any point involved in their business. In- 

 deed, an experiment station that thus gets down to the common, every day, 

 working farmer, should have so much correspondence of this nature as to 

 require the constant employment of at least one, if not two, competent sten- 

 ographer and tj'pe-writer. Every effort should be made to encourage farm- 

 ers to ask (Questions of the station, and also to visit it. They should be made 

 to know that it is established and operated for their benelit. Copies of let- 

 ters and replies of general or special interest should be sent to all tlie agri- 

 cultural papers that circulate in the stiite, as well as the party whose inquiry 

 provoked the answer. Indeed, no effort should be spared to i)lac-e the infor- 

 mation given out by the station before the whole public of farmers. 



One of the best features of the Hatch act is that which j)ermits the free 

 circulation in the mails of the experiment station bulletins and report.-. 

 There would be no sense in si>ending $lo,000 or more annually in each stat»; 

 in work of this i">ature, ostensibly for the benefit of farmerfS, and thou h ivo 

 it locked up in an annual report that few would ever .see. It is tho <liH'u^ion 

 of knowledge that .should be one of the important objects of the station, and 

 this should apply not only to the results of the the station's original work, 

 but to the dill'nsion of results and knowledge gained at similar institutions 

 elsewhere, or knowledge gained by any other means, .so far as it apjilied tr, 

 and was helpful to, agriculture. Under a proper system of management this 



