ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND STATIONS. 55 



Tho fiirniers"' institute woi k. which the Depaitineiit haa taken up 

 through this Office, was outlined by A. C. True, who stated clearl}^ 

 the policy of the Department in regard to this work. There will be 

 no attempt to interfere with the State management of farmers' insti- 

 tutes in any way, but rather to cooperate with the State officials and 

 to aid them in l)uilding up the institutes in the several States. The 

 Department will l)e a general agency for coordinating and strengthen- 

 ing this work throughout the country. One of the main ol^jects at 

 present is to help to increase the efficienc}^ of the institute lecturers, 

 now numbering over S(K), less than half of whom are connected with 

 the work of the colleges or the stations. A corps of specially trained 

 institute w^orkers was recommended as eventually desira])le, to relieve 

 the college and station men of nuu-h of the burden of this work, as it 

 is still the opinion of the Office that the prime object of college men is 

 to teach and of the station men to investigate. 



A resolution presented by C. E. Thorne commended the reviews 

 furnished by the Experiment Station Record, and suggested an exten- 

 sion of these to include more full abstracts in the case of some of the 

 foreign pul)lications, which are accessible to only a portion of the sta- 

 tion workers, and directed the executive committee of the association 

 to urge upon the Secretary of Agriculture the securing of additional 

 funds for this purpose. 



The plans of the new l)uilding for the Department of Agriculture 

 were exhibited and explained l)y B. T, Galloway. 



The three sessions of the section on agriculture and chemistry were 

 occupied chiefly with papers and discussions relating to soils, especially 

 soil fertility. Throughout these discussions there were frequent ref- 

 erences to the principles laid down in Bulletin 22 of the Bureau of 

 Soils, and their conflict with views w^hich have previously been held 

 regarding soil fertility and maintenance. The papers presented 

 included The Present Status of Soil Investigations, l)y C. G. Hopkins; 

 The Chemistr}' of Soils as Related to Crop Production, by E. W. Hil- 

 gard; two papers on Methods of Conducting Investigations Relating 

 to Maintenance or Increase of Soil Fertility, by C. E. Thorne and 

 E. B. Voorhees; and a discussion of the same subject by II. W. \\'ilev; 

 Differences between four Southern and four Northern Soils, and 

 Improvements in Soil Management which these Diflerences Suggest, 

 by F. II. King; Methods for the Extension and Practical Application 

 of Soil Survevs, l>v R. H. Forbes; Methods and Value of Securino" 

 Irrigation Supplemental to Rainfall for Humid and Semiaiid Districts, 

 by L. (J. Cai-i)entei-: two psipers on Experiments in Animal Breeding, 

 by F. B. Mumt'ord and C. S. Plumb. There was also a discussion of 

 jMethods for the Extension and Practical A|)i)lication of Soil Surveys, 

 by Milton Whitney. 



The topic of Botjuiy and Horticulture was the main theme of a dis- 



