424 ANNUAL REPOETS OF DEPAETMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 



tionships. It shows these relationships to be continental in scope 

 and discloses the many points of contact between the department 

 and the stations in the States. 



The types of undertakings involved in these cooperative relation- 

 ships with the stations include soil and other surveys ; experiments 

 in the methods of production, culture, fertilizer requirements, and 

 adaptation of a long list of agricultural crops, fruits, and vegetables; 

 the study of diseases and pests of cultivated crops, forest trees, and 

 products, their eradication and control; the breeding and improve- 

 ment of plants and live stock: the study of animal diseases and the 

 maintenance of quarantines and other repressive measures. It em- 

 braces studies in farm management and in the cost .of production of 

 staple crops under a wide variety of conditions ; dry-land agriculture, 

 drainage, and irrigation ; the utilization of cut-over and waste land ; 

 the factors affecting the carrying capacity of westejn ranges; life 

 history and food habits of rodents and other injurious animals; 

 and forest reproduction and management. 



In fact, there is hardly a branch of agricultural inquiry in which 

 there is not some form of coo}Deration, and the amount of money 

 involved aggregates many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Alto- 

 gether there are 140 different cooperative projects and, since many 

 of these are participated in by several stations, the total number of 

 cases of cooperation between the department and the experiment sta- 

 tions amounts to 274. It is Avorthy of note that this represents over 

 70 per cent of the cases of cooperation of the department with out- 

 side agencies in research. 



The review of the results of this type of activity, which has been 

 steadily on the increase, is illustrative of the advantage of such co- 

 operative relations, of its practicability, and of the importance of 

 giving even greater attention to systematizing the conduct of agri- 

 cultural investigation and avoiding unnecessary a'nd unrelated dupli- 

 cation. The work of the department and the stations is so vast and 

 so varied that it is beyond the ability of any single agency to com- 

 pass. To prevent its being fragmentary and disjointed, systematized 

 effort on a national basis is highly important. The establishment 

 of close relations, with cooperation in planning and execution, mini- 

 mizes a tendency to collect local facts without broad interpretation. 

 It leads to greater uniformity of effort, wdiich enables the results to 

 be more readilj^ fitted together and harmonized, and it enables mak- 

 ing the attack more comprehensive and complete. 



Experience of the recent past has shown that this type of effort 

 need not suppress originality of thought or pride of accomplishment, 

 if proper consideration is shown for each party to the enterprise, 

 with liberality in making the plan and in the ultimate awarding of 

 credit. The ends of cooperation and coordination would be favored 

 by provision for systematic attention to newly establish cooperative 

 ventures and the maintenance of such files relating to them as would 

 make information about them readily accessible. 



EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



During the fiscal year Experiment Station Record completed its 

 forty-sixth volume and its thirty-second year of service. Publica- 

 tictn during the most of this long period has been carried on without 



