558 ANNUAL, REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



terial equipment, personnel, publications, financial needs, obstacles, 

 means of reaching the farmers, and various other matters. A sym- 

 pathetic and helpful attitude has been assumed by the visitors. Much 

 useful information has been given the station workers, and the 

 requirements of station work have often been impressed on admin- 

 istrative officers, governing boards, and sometimes on governors and 

 legislatures. Standards of work and expenditures have been set up- 

 as the result of intimate acquaintance with conditions existing 

 chroughout the United States. A progressive policy has been pur- 

 sued with reference to strictness of legal interpretations and the atti- 

 tude toward different lines of work. 



For a considerable time after the establishment of the stations; 

 there was a great lack of properly trained investigators, particularly 

 in the more purely agricultural lines of work which appealed par- 

 ticularly to the farmers. It was therefore necessary for the stations ta 

 make many comparatively simple experiments and to employ unusual 

 methods to disseminate the results of their work so as to win the 

 support of the farmers. It was also necessary to take a liberal atti- 

 tude toward the assistance which station officers gave to the teaching 

 departments of the colleges, since the strengthening of the agricul- 

 tural instruction was imperative if there were to be well-trained 

 investigators. 



On the other hand, it was very important that the unity of organ-^ 

 ization of the station within the college should be maintained, that 

 station workers should have time and means to do real experimental 

 work, that station funds should not be wasted in trivial or unpro- 

 ductive enterprises, and that the tendency to scatter these funds over 

 the State in substations or otherwise should be checked, lest the' 

 whole station enterprise should be structurally weak. The office 

 therefore exerted constant pressure in these directions with results 

 which greatly strengthened the stations. 



When it became apparent that the stations needed more financial 

 aid from the Federal Government than was given in the Hatch Act,, 

 the Office of Experiment Stations joined with those who believed that 

 such aid should be given to strengthen the more fundamental inves- 

 tigations of the stations. This movement resulted in the passage 

 of the Adams Act in 1906, with the provision that the use of the 

 funds granted under that act should be restricted to " original re- 

 searches or experiments." In administering this act the office has 

 arranged with the stations for the submission of their projects before 

 putting them into effect. This has given opportunity for much 

 helpful consultation on these projects and a large amount of rela- 

 tively fundamental and thorough research has been carried on by 

 the stations in recent years. 



The functions of the office as a clearing house of information and 

 consultation on a great variety of matters relating to agricultural 

 research throughout the world have steadily grown and have given 

 it an important place in aiding the scientific work of the department 

 and the stations. 



THE ALASKAN AND INSULAR STATIONS. 



Growing interest in Alaska led Congress to make an appropria- 

 tion in 1897 for experimental work in agriculture in that Territory.. 



