16 REPORT OF OFFICE OP EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



work of the Office, and has thrown the burden too largely upon it of 

 eliminating undertakings which do not properly belong under a 

 research fund. The difficulty of explaining the distinctions of re- 

 search through correspondence makes necessary a careful scrutiny of 

 the projects and their discussion at the station before they are sub- 

 mitted. It is also found necessary to follow the work under the 

 various projects in considerable detail, and to insist on its being 

 developed along research lines and held to specific studies. This 

 has added materially to the duties of the inspection. It is still too 

 much the practice to permit men whose training and experience do 

 not fit them for good research work to participate in it. 



The increasing importance and prominence which various forms 

 of extension work are assuming, and the rapid developments along 

 that line, have raised many questions as to the use of the federal 

 funds, and have made a more strict diflferentiation necessary between 

 station work proper and the popular demonstration and extension 

 features. This is one of the most conspicuous developments of the 

 year as aff"ecting the supervision of the station funds, and is discussed 

 at some length in the report on work and expenditures (p. 55). 



The need of a better system of publication of station work is grow- 

 ing more urgent. The present mixture of scientific and popular 

 material, compilations, inspection tests, and analyses becomes more 

 and more confusing and unsatisfactory to farmers and scientists 

 alike. It is hoped that as the extension departments are organized 

 they will take from the stations the great burden of compiling bul- 

 letins and of miscellaneous routine correspondence. 



A way should also be found to publish separately the detailed rec- 

 ords and results of the scientific work of the stations. In many places 

 valuable data are being accumulated and stored up because no feasi- 

 ble method of publication has been found. The practice is rapidly 

 growing of publishing brief accounts of the scientific work of the 

 stations in a great variety of scientific journals at home and abroad. 

 As one means of disseminating information regarding this work such 

 publication is a good thing. It can not, however, take the place of a 

 full publication of the scientific work of the stations. 



Such scrappy and scattered publication gives a very inadequate 

 record of what the stations are doing in advancing knowledge, and 

 produces very little impression of the real services of the stations as 

 public scientific institutions. The whole tendency of such a system 

 is to build up the scientific reputation of the individual officer at the 

 expense of the institution which he serves. A method of publica- 

 tion is needed which will bring together the scientific work of the 

 American stations, so that the world may know what these institn- 

 tions endowed with federal and state funds are really doing to ad- 



