MAINE AGRICULTURAI, EXPERIMENT STATION. I913. 5 



ticularly under the food and drug law, it came about that the 

 time of the Director of the Experiment Station and much of 

 the office force was diverted from the strict purpose of inves- 

 tigation to that of poHce duties. Recognizing that it was the 

 function of an experiment station to conduct original experi- 

 ments and investigations in agriculture, and that the function 

 of the State Department of Agriculture is executive, the 

 Legislature of 1913 so changed the laws regulating the sale of 

 agricultural seeds, commercial fertilizers, commercial feeding 

 stuffs, drugs, foods, fungicides and insecticides, that the purely 

 executive part of the work is, beginning with January i, 1914, 

 in the hands of the Commissioner of Agriculture. The analyti- 

 cal work, including the publication of the results of the exami- 

 nations, will be conducted at the Experiment Station, as in the 

 past. This probably is the most important legislation, from the 

 standpoint of the integrity and concentration of the work of 

 the Experiment Station, that has recently occurred. 



Dissemination of Information. 



It is not the function of the Station to disseminate general 

 agricultural or other information. That is for the College 

 through its extension department. It is, however, the distinct 

 duty of the Station to publish the results of its investigations. 

 Although the correspondence that bears upon general agricul- 

 ture is referred as far as practicable to the correspondence 

 department of the University, the Station receives and answers 

 many thousand letters each year. 



The Station publishes: (a) Bulletins which contain the 

 results of investigation; (b) Official Inspections which give 

 the results of the work of inspection; (c) Miscellaneous Publi- 

 cations; and (d) a series of publicity letters that are issued 

 Wednesdays of each week and sent to a limited number of 

 papers to be released for publication on the following Wednes- 

 day. The bulletins, the Official Inspections and the chief mis- 

 cellaneous publications are bound together at the close of the 

 year and make up the Annual Report of the Station. During 

 1913 there were issued 14 bulletins containing about 350 pages ; 

 10 Official Inspections containing about 350 pages ; 28 miscel- 

 laneous publications and 53 publicity letters. 



