XCVI REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. 



general adoption of the round form of silo is direct!}^ traceable to 

 experiment station influence. 



Through the efforts of the Department and the stations, the applica- 

 tion of insecticides and fungicides as means of protection against 

 injurious insects and plant diseases has become almost universal, and 

 the benefits and profits resulting from the practice are no longer 

 questioned. Striking evidence of the readiness with which farmers 

 and fruit growers will now adopt promising means of plant protection 

 is furnished bv the fact that the method of formaldehvde treatment of 

 smut of oats, proposed by one of the stations, was almost immediately 

 put into use by over 25,000 farmers in the State of Wisconsin alone, 

 with the prospect that the number using the method Avill be vasth'^ 

 increased the next 3xar. As the estimated loss from oat smut in Wis- 

 consin varies from ^3,000,000 to $7,000,000 annually, according to the 

 season and other conditions, the value of an effective means of preven- 

 tion of the disease can be readily estimated. 



The Utah station has achieved notable success in its study of the 

 extent to which drj^ farming, that is, farming on lands in the arid 

 region which can not be irrigated, may be practiced with profit and the 

 conditions necessary to success. This work is bearing fruit in the 

 rapid extension on a safe basis of what has heretofore been a very 

 precarious system. 



So rapidl}^ has the demand for the services of agricultural experts 

 spread in different directions that the workers in this service have in 

 many instances been overworked, or, at least, have been forced to dis- 

 sipate their energies in attempts to cover too many fields. There is, 

 therefore, a most urgent necessity that the number of workers in our 

 agricultural institutions should be increased so as to permit proper 

 specialization of work. The station investigators must be relieved of 

 teaching, lecturing at farmers' institutes, and other services, which, 

 while important in themselves, distract their attention, dissipate their 

 energies, and seriously hinder the progress of effective investigations. 



It will be of little use to construct expensive laboratories and equip 

 them with elaborate apparatus unless thej' are manned with first-class 

 investigators. There is nothing new in this proposition, but the 

 progress of agricultural institutions in this country in recent years 

 makes it imperative that the work of the experiment stations and 

 of this Department as the source of new knowledge on agricultural 

 problems should be raised to the highest grade and kept there. The 

 wider the work of the agricultural colleges, schools, farmers' institutes, 

 and other agencies for the education of our rural population becomes 

 the more important is it that the institutions of research in agriculture 

 should be the best that human wisdom can devise. It is now necessary 

 to insist on this more strong!}" than ever before, and it will be neces- 

 sary to reiterate it until the managers of agricultural institutions and 



