EXPERIMENT STATION NOTES. 



The following circulars have been issued by the executive committee of the Asso- 

 ciation of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations : 



Office of the Executive Committee, 

 JgricuUural College, Md., July 24, 1890. 



The contents of this circular concerns both colleges and stations. 



The annual Agricultural Appropriation Bill for the current fiscal year of the United 

 States, approved July 14, 1890, and jmnted as " Public — No. 213," includes the appro- 

 I)riation for agricultural experiment stations, and directs that the same " shall be 

 paid quarterly, in advance. " The accounts have to-day been certified, and the 

 Treasury Department ofiicials state that the drafts for the first quarter will be mailed 

 at Washington within ten days. 



The following order has been signed by the Postmaster-General and will be promul- 

 gated in the August issue of the Official Postal Guide : 



Order No. . Paragraph 3, section 419, Postal Laws and Regulations, 1887, is 



hereby amended so as to read as follows : 



"Only such bulletins or reports as shall have been issued after the station became 

 entitled to the benefits of the act can be transmitted free, and such bulletins or re- 

 ports may be inclosed in envelopes or wrappers, sealed or unsealed. On the exterior 

 of every envelope, wrapper, or package must be written or printed the name of the 

 station and place of its location, the designation of the inclosed bulletin or report, 

 and the word 'Free' over the signature or fac simile thereof of the officer in charge 

 of the station, to be affixed by himself, or by some one duly deputed by him for that 

 purpose. There may also be written or printed upon the envelope or wrapper a re- 

 quest that the postmaster at the office of delivery will notify the mailing station of 

 the change of address of the addressee, or other reason for inability to deliver the 

 same, and upon abulk package a request to the postmaster to open and distribute the 

 ' franked' matter therein, in accordance with the address thereon. 



" Bulletins published by the U. S. Department of Agriculture and analogous to 

 those of the station, and entitled to be mailed free under the penalty envelope of that 

 Department, may also be adopted and mailed by the several stations, with their own 

 publications, under the same regulations, and any bulletins or reports mailable free 

 by any agricultural experiment station under these regulations may be so mailed by 

 any other station having free mailing authority. 



" If such station's annual reports be printed by State authority, and consist in 

 part of matter relating to the land grant college to which such station is attached, 

 then said report may be mailed free entire by the director of the station ; provided, 

 in his judgment, the whole consists of useful information of an agricultural char- 

 acter. " 



The undersigned ventures the opinion that the ad vantages to be derived by the in- 

 stitutions concerned, from the new legislation and regulations quoted above, which 

 were procured by and for this Association through the medium of its executive com- 

 mittee, will more than repay every college and station, in dollars and cents, for its 

 contributions to the Association the i)re8ent year. 



Very respectfully yours, 



Henry E. Alvord, Chairman, 

 For the Executive Committee. 



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