822 ANNUAL KEPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



sion work, which should be met in other ways. Boards of manage- 

 ment and pjeneral administrative officers, as well as legislatures and 

 the public, in the United States have still much to learn as to the wis- 

 dom and necessity of making the research institutions deriving their 

 support from public funds as strong and efficient as possible. Unless 

 this is done in the case of the agricultural institutions, the progress of 

 the proper education of our rural people will be greatly hindered, 

 and the highest success of our agriculture will be indefinitely post- 

 poned. 



During the past year the office called attention to the irregularity 

 in publisning the annual report at many stations, and urged the adop- 

 tion of a definite and regular policy with regard to this particular 

 publication. It was pointed out that the publication of an annual 

 report is required by the Hatch Act; that the uncertainty in pub- 

 lishing it is a great inconvenience to libraries and other institutions 

 or individuals endeavoring to keep complete files; and that the re- 

 quirements of a full and detailed report are not always fulfilled. 

 One of the great disadvantages of discontinuing the annual rejport 

 or of publishing it in a merely perfunctory manner is the loss of the 

 station history. The annual report of the station should be so 

 written as to give a sj'^stematic record by which the history and evo- 

 lution of the station can be traced, and show from year to year 

 the public support which the institution has received and how the 

 scope of its work has broadened. The office has maintained that 

 there is a place for such a document and that its value warrants the 

 expense and the effort of its preparation. As a rule, State institu- 

 tions issue annual reports on their activities, and it is not apparent 

 why the experiment station, which is one of the most prominent and 

 important State institutions, should not do so. 



Consideration was further given to the needs and requirements 

 of station publications in general. The number and variety of pub- 

 lications issued by the stations at present tend to obscure the research 

 character of the institution. The number of publications has greatly 

 increased, while their miscellaneous character has not diminished. 

 In many cases the station publications include popular, semipopular, 

 and technical articles, based in part on station work and in part 

 on general sources of information. Among these are inspection bul- 

 letins, announcements of college courses, nature-study pamphlets for 

 teachers and pupils, and other similar matter, which givea wrong 

 conception of the stations as primarily research institutions, and 

 prevent a proper appreciation of their real contributions to the 

 science of agriculture, for whose advancement they w^ere established. 

 The research work of the stations should stand out in bold relief. 

 To bring this about, several of the stations are now publishing 

 successfully a distinct and separate series of technical bulletins, 

 which report their investigations in more scientific language and 

 detail. The number of stations adopting this plan is growing. 

 Since this technical matter is of value and interest to a particular 

 class of readers, it is necessary to have separate mailing lists for the 

 different classes of readers which the station intends to reach, in 

 order to distribute its publications in an economical and profitable 

 way. 



There is still need of a general publication in which the scientific 

 work of the stations would be brought together and thus compre- 



