EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. 2. JULY, 1891. No. 12. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



The present number completes the second vohime of the Experiment 

 station Record. A chissifted table of coiiteiits and a i'uli index have 

 been prepared for this volume. The table of contents contains a cata- 

 logue of the abstracts of 329 bulletins and 42 annual reports of the 

 stations, and 36 publications of this Department. Tlie total number of 

 I)ages included in these ])ublications is 14,781. The station publications 

 abstracted comprise buUetins published in 1890 and during a part of 

 1891, as well as annual reports for 1889 and 1890, including nearly all the 

 reports for those years which have been received in this Office. As stated 

 in a previous number of the Record (p. 391), the irregularity with which 

 the station publications are issued makes it impracticable to give any 

 exact time limit to those which are to be abstracted in a single volume. 



The Record aims to give a rapid and impartial review of substan- 

 tially all the publications of the stations and this Department. The 

 mass and variety of this literature, it is believed, is a sufficient justifi- 

 cation for the attempt to condense into a single publication an outline 

 which will enable the student of the present or the future to readily 

 find out what has been published either by the stations or the Dei)art- 

 ment in any given line. The fact that under present conditions a con- 

 siderable portion of this literature is of transient value only makes it 

 more necessary that some means should be devised for ligh'ening the 

 labors of those who wish to i>ursue thorough investigations. To attempt 

 to sift out whatever is of permanent value and to discard the rest would 

 result in leaving the student of the work of these institutions for 

 research in agriculture in doubt in any particular case whether after all 

 he had really obtained knowledge of all their work which might be of 

 service to him. It is believed however that sufficient details regarding 

 the methods and results of the more original and important iuvestiga- 

 tions of the stations have been given to enable the investigator to get 

 considerable general information regarding work in lines in which he is 

 not a specialist, as well as in his own field, and the intelligent lay reader 

 to at least understand the practical results of station work. 



The table of contents and iudex to the volume have been made in 

 considerable detail, with a view to meeting the needs of persons con- 

 sulting the Record from many differeut points of view. 



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