66 HKPORT OF OKIMCK OV F,X1'KI{I M ENT STATIONS. 



A coMsidornlilo niiiul)(.'r dl" the oM projects \\:\\o liccii ciilarjied in scope 

 so as to iii\(il\i' the c()()i)erati()n of seM'ial departments and thus 

 make tlie study more comprehensive and thoroutrh. IVfany of the 

 newer ]>rojcH'ts are hirije and exjx'nsive, atid couhl oidy have l)een 

 undertaken with such a special fund. The simpler problems in 

 a»!;riculture have many of them been worked out, so that the field of 

 invest i<;ation now leads into a more intricate and difficult line of in- 

 vest iijat ion. The successful develoi)ment of these ])rojects requires 

 research ability of a high degree, and calls for consideral)le amounts 

 of money to give the work the necessary scope and to })rovide the 

 special apparatus and other facilities which are needed. 



Everything considered, the research work under the Adams fund 

 is in a gratifying condition, and has alread}' become a factor of the 

 greatest importance in the usefulness of the experiment statitms. As 

 this research is extende<l to every State and Territory in the Union, 

 great scope is given to the problems under investigation, representing 

 various jjhases of agriculture the country over. 



Efforts in the direction of a concentration of the fund on a small 

 number of projects or independent researches have been continued 

 without abatement. The desirability of such concentration has im- 

 pressed itself quite generally upon the stations, in some cases as a 

 result of actual experience in which it has been found necessary to 

 drop from that fund some of the projects originally assigned to it. 

 But a tendency still exists among a few stations to overload that fund 

 with an unreasonable and impossible number of projects. Either one 

 of two results must follow such a course — the projects must receive 

 considerable support from other funds, or no real active investiga- 

 tion will result but instead a little work along the borders of the sub- 

 ject, conducted on a scale unsatisfying to the investigator and yield- 

 ing little of real scientific value. The encouragement by station au- 

 thorities of such a splitting up of the fund seems to indicate a lack 

 of definite plan for its use, and does not fully take account of the 

 needs of agricultural investigation. The subsidizing of various small 

 undertakings by professors in the college, some of whom have an in- 

 definite status m the station, has little to reconnnend it, and real agri- 

 cultural investigation will not be developed in this way. It has 

 already been demonstrated that for productive investigation it is 

 desirable to haAe a few persons who give their time primarily to it, 

 and wnth whom investigation is a primaiy and not a secondary effort. 



An important result of the Adams Act has been the i-emarkable 

 stimulating etfect it has had on research in agriculture outside of that 

 carried on under the funds appropriated by the act. It has been the 

 means of building up a strong sentiment for efforts of a research 

 character which are fundamental and scientific in character, and it 

 has developed an interest and belief in agricultural investigation which 



