Report of the Director. xxxv 



that are yet little developed in the North American colleges. There 

 is special need for scientific and long-continued investigation into 

 the principles and practice of the breeding of domestic animals, a 

 subject that remains practically unattacked notwithstanding volumin- 

 ous writing on it. The proper study of this subject would entail 

 much expense for animals, lands, equipment, and men ; but sooner 

 or later the inquiry must be undertaken. It is useless to begin 

 work of this kind without ample facilities and the assurance that 

 the work will be continuous. At this College, the live-stock inter- 

 ests have grown in recent years and we have no apologies to make 

 as far as we have gone; but the work is far short of meeting the 

 needs of the State. 



Some of the subjects now beginning to be loosely combined into 

 departments of rural economy, or under similar titles, in the col- 

 leges of agriculture, must eventually be separated into co-ordinate 

 departments or subdepartments. It is evident, when one comes to 

 consider the matter, that one officer cannot be expected long to 

 handle efifectively such separate subjects as prices, co-operation, or- 

 ganization, social results of education, historical development of 

 agriculture, statistics, land tenures and occupancy, rural social 

 movements, systems of farming as affecting local institutions, and 

 all the other studies of the rural problem lying outside or beyond 

 the questions of technical farm practice. 



Student Activities. 



I desire to put it on record that the students in the New York 

 State College of Agriculture, as well as the stafif, exercise a very 

 great influence on the work and temper of the institution. All the 

 persons in the College, stafif and students together, constitute a 

 social group. The institution is trying to work out a real social 

 co-operative structure. 



The students have associated themselves together in a number 

 of organizations representing the several teaching and social activi- 

 ties. Some of these are open to farmers and women who have 

 not been students in the College. The following clubs indicate the 

 nature of this association: Lazy Club (Horticulture), Round-up 

 Club (Animal Husbandry), Synapsis Club (Plant-Breeding), Juga- 

 tse (Entomology), Plant Doctors, Poultry Association, Cornell 

 Chapter of American Society of Agronomy (composed of mem- 

 bers of the faculty and graduate students), Frigga Fylge (Agri- 

 cultural Girls' Club), Cornell Agricultural Musical Clubs, repre- 



