EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. 2. SEPTEMBER, 1890. No. 2. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Erequeut inquiries have been received at this Office in regard to the 

 ways in which the station funds received from the General Government 

 may be legally and properly expended. The following letters are pub- 

 lished as indicating the opinions held by the Department of Agriculture 

 in regard to the matters referred to : 



U. S. Depaktment of Agriculture, 



Office of Experiment Stations. 



Dear Sir : la answer to your iminiry regarding the proper use of the fmids given 

 by Congress to experiment stations, I may repeat what was said in response to a pre- 

 vious inquiry received at this Otifice. 



The specitic (juestiou was whether the experiment station funds must be nsed for 

 experiment station purposes exclusively, or whether they miL;ht bo applied in part, 

 either directly or indirectly, to college purposes also. The answer was, in substance, 

 as follows : 



This Department does not make decisions in such cases, but gives its opinion and 

 advice when called for. To this question the answer is perfectly clear. The funds 

 are for experiment station purposes, and for those only. The act of Congress of 

 March 2, 1887, providing for the establishment of the stations, states distinctly, in 

 section 2, "the object and duty of the stations," namely, "to conduct original re- 

 searches or verify experiments " upon subjects of the classes named ; and in section 

 .'j, defines the purposes for which the grants of money may be used, namely, for (1) 

 paying the necessary expenses of conducting investigations and experiments; (2) 

 printing aiul distributing the results; and (IJ) the erection, enlargement, or repair of 

 buildings n('ces3ary for carrying on the worli of the stations. 



The intent of the act, thus definitely stated in its phraseology, is also shown in the 

 report of the Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives which ac- 

 conipauied the bill as presented to the House (See pp. 61-6G of Experiment Station 

 Bulletin No. 1, of this Office). As an argument in favor of the establishment of ex- 

 periment stations to bo connected with colleges, that report urged that the work of 

 experimenting by the colleges had been but "imperfectly provided for," that this 

 measure would provide for it, and in so doing would " utilize the buildings, labora- 

 tories, farms, libraries, and apparatus belonging to the institutions which Congress 

 has already established, and thus supplement for a specific tmd [namely, experimental 

 incjuiry ] the appliances already created for general ends." In other words it was the 

 clear expectation that, in accepting this trust, the colleges, so far from making use 



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