BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY, ITS FUNCTIONS AND EFFICIENCY. 11 



both the individual and the work as a whole. As our work progresses 

 we are coming- more and more to see that the future holds for us 

 higher ideals in the matter of teamwork. We are coming more and 

 more to see the necessity of attacking our problems as great crop 

 problems rather than as different phases of crop problems. We have 

 already had some striking illustrations in the bureau of the success 

 of team effort. The work of Mr. Powell in connection with the 

 harvesting, storing, and marketing of fruits is an example of efficient 

 team service. Another example is found in connection with our 

 southwestern cotton work. More and more our ideals should lead us 

 to develop these teams around crop problems, and while there seems 

 no doubt that this effort will constantly increase efficiency there can 

 be no good reason for fearing that it will take away in any degree 

 that feeling of recognition and reward which is due every earnest 

 worker. 



Common sense as an efficiency principle may hardly seem worthy of 

 note in work such as ours, but when we come to consider what com- 

 mon sense is we are met at once with the fact that common sense is 

 in reality very uncommon sense and is, or should be, one of the 

 fundamental precepts in guiding our actions. Again applying Mr. 

 Emerson's definitions, we have two kinds of common sense — a near 

 common sense and a supernal common sense. Twenty-six years ago 

 a gentleman then connected with the Department of Agriculture ad- 

 vanced the argument that it would be against the principles of 

 economy to organize any further branches or divisions in the depart- 

 ment. His opposition, was largely based on matters of economy that 

 had to do at that time with the early development of our plant- 

 disease work. The then Commissioner of Agriculture overruled this 

 man with a near common sense for immediate economy, and the work 

 on plant diseases was organized. The Commissioner of Agriculture 

 was a man of supernal common sense, who viewed a situation from a 

 mountain top, as it were, and it is this grasp of vision that makes the 

 difference between the two types of men. It was this gift of supernal 

 common sense that led to the establishment of the agricultural experi- 

 ment stations, the reorganization of the Department of Agriculture, 

 and the passage of the Adams Act. 



An organization such as ours can not long exist and do its best work 

 without competent counsel and proper discipline. Competent counsel 

 must come from all men, and the more this .is recognized by the offi- 

 cials the greater and broader will be the opportunity for the present- 

 ing of ideas, and ideas after all form the basis for nearly all construc- 

 tive effort. One of the mistakes likely to be made in the development 

 of bureaus, both as to counsel and discipline, is that laxity of purpose 

 [Clr. 117] 



