10 CIRCULAR NO. 118, BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY. 



more nearly balances industrially. The temptation is strong for us 

 to become merely a collection of specialists, each intent upon for- 

 warding his own particular line; but we can not go on indefinitely 

 in this direction. With every step of progress the field broadens. 

 We are the servants of a patient and optimistic people. We have 

 been given a broad charter and ample means, and we should do our 

 utmost to justify the confidence that has been placed in us. This we 

 can do most effectively by so welding together our specialties that 

 when we combine to improve an existing industry or to establish a 

 new one we may do really effective work. 



Even in the work we are now doing we have acute need for the kind 

 of information that is to be gained from investigations in the econom- 

 ics of crop disposal. Such investigations might spare us expensive 

 efforts in the solution of production problems. In the case of many 

 of our minor crops the important question often is not how best to 

 grow them in a certain place, but whether or not it is worth while to 

 grow them there at all. Such investigations are particularly appro- 

 priate to the Bureau of Plant Industry, since they involve^ interstate 

 operations, while many of the production problems upon which we 

 are engaged are more essentially local in their nature. 



The particular plea that I wish to make is that as a group of men 

 working together upon allied subjects we ought to give a larger pro- 

 portion of our thought to the economic phases of the industries upon 

 which we are at work. 



[Cir. 118.] 



