OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 243 



tioii and research, in immediate charge of the Director, have remained 

 essentially as heretofore and may be conveniently described under 

 the following heads: («) Agricultural experiment stations in the 

 United States; (b) American institutions for agricultural education; 

 (e) Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment 

 Stations; and, (d) foreign institutions for agricultural education and 

 research. 



AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

 ADVISORY RELATIONS WITH THE STATIONS. 



The advice and assistance of this Office in many matters relating to 

 the organization, equiiDinent, and work of the stations continue to be 

 sought in a large measure. In particular the personal conferences 

 between station officers and representatives of this Office have 

 increased in number and importance. This has enabled the Office to 

 get a more thorough understanding of the problems of station work 

 and to bring its influence more directly to bear on the development 

 of the station enterprise. 



The feature of the progress of agricultural institutions in this 

 country which has attracted most attention during the past year is 

 the rapid increase in the public interest in these institutions. This is 

 shown in the increase in the number of students in the agricultural 

 colleges and schools, in the larger attendance at the farmers' insti- 

 tutes, in the enlarged correspondence and mailing lists of the stations, 

 in the increased demand for trained workers in agricultural and other 

 business enteriirises requiring scientific and expert knowledge and 

 skill for their most successful management, and in the wider space 

 given to agrieultural education and research in agricultural and other 

 journals. 



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

 spread in different directions that the workers in tliis service haA^e in 

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

 sipate their energies in attempts to cover too manj^ fields. There is 

 therefore a most urgent necessit}^ 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 jjrogress of effective investigations. 



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

 them with elaborate apparatus unless the}^ are manned with first-class 

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

 progress of agricultural institutions in this countiy in recent j^ears 

 makes it imi^erative that the work of the experiment stations and of 

 this Department as the source of new knowledge on agricultural prob- 

 lems 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 neces- 

 sary to insist on this more strongly than ever before, and it will be 

 necessaiy to reiterate it until the managers of agricultural institutions 

 and the friends of agricultural progress accejDt this principle in i^rac- 

 tice as well as in theory. Under present conditions a large number 



