EEVIEW OF THE YEAR. 61 



funds are often desired for extension work. Printing of what are 

 really extension documents is paid for from the Hatch fund, and 

 miscellaneous expenses are laid upon these funds which would not 

 have been incurred but for the pressure for extension work. 



It has therefore been necessary to make a closer scrutiny of the 

 station accounts with reference to this matter and to insist that full 

 provision be made to charge all extension expenses to other funds. 

 This matter has been made the subject of a circular letter to the 

 stations, issued in Febniarv, li^OO, in which the position of the Office 

 with reference to the expenditure of the Hatch fund was defined. 

 Notice was given that expenses for extension work should not be 

 charged against the Hatch fund, and that only such printing should 

 be done with that fund as will record the experimental work of the 

 stations established under the Hatch Act. This rules out compila- 

 tions, bulletins of substations, and a variety of publications which are 

 useful in extension work but are not included within the terms of 

 the Hatch Act. The stations were urged as far as was necessary to 

 change their policy of expenditure of the Hatch fund so as to devote 

 a large share of that fund to definite experimental work, restrict the 

 expenditures for j^rinting as indicated above, and put miscellaneous 

 and administrative expenses as far as possible on other funds. 



The public and their representatives in legislatures and adminis- 

 tration offices do not yet fully understand the magnitude of the enter- 

 prise involved in bringing home to the millions of men and women 

 on the farms the results of the work of scientists and practical men 

 for the improvement of agriculture and the general conditions of 

 country life. The officers now employed in the agricultural colleges 

 and experiment stations can not do this work in any large way. It 

 is true that they have in the past done much to show the desirability 

 of extension work in agriculture and to develop the lines for such 

 work. But now that the movement is under way they are over- 

 whelmed if they attempt to carry it. 



It has sometimes been felt that the extension departments if sepa- 

 rated from the station and organized with a distinct corps of workers 

 would tend to separate the station workers from close touch with the 

 farmers and obscure the importance and value of station work as 

 related to the agricultural industry. This, however, need not be the 

 case if the extension departments are properly organized and manned. 

 The scheme of organization should include the giving of opportunities 

 to station men to attend meetings of farmers from time to time to 

 present the results of station work, and the giving of credit to the 

 stations for whatever information received from them is incorporated 

 in extension publications. The station should not in any case be de- 

 prived of the privilege of issuing popular accounts of the results of 

 its experimental work as station ])ublications. The college authori- 



