2 EXPEEIMENT STATION RECORD. 



sociation for the Advancement of Science in December. It m?ij be 

 noted also that an amendment to the constitution of the association 

 was submitted to the council, providing for the addition of a section 

 on agriculture, the proposal to be acted upon at the meeting next 

 year. While this is interesting as pointing to the increased attention 

 which the subject of agriculture is attracting from men of science, 

 and a recognition of the position which it has attained^ agriculture 

 as a composite science is alread}'^ receiving much attention in the 

 various science sections of the association, and it is perhaps ques- 

 tionable whether the attempt to take these discussions out of their 

 present setting and transfer them to a single section would be 

 successful in any large measure. 



xVgriculture has long suffered from a dissipation or division of 

 effort, and to a certain extent has been subject to too narrow or one- 

 sided specialization. The publication of the scientific work relating 

 to it has been scattered through the proceedings of many scientific 

 and semipopular bodies, and there has been no agency for assembling 

 this material so as to give an adequate expression of its volume and 

 scientific character. The result has had its effect to some extent upon 

 the men working in it, and on the general conception of scientific 

 men in regard to it. From an almost entire lack of suitable place for 

 papers and discussions in this field, there has come to be such a mul- 

 tiplicity of societies and associations, each usually dedicated to a 

 rather narrow field and working quite independently of any other 

 organization, often with duplication or overlapping, that confusion 

 and a lack of strength and effectiveness have resulted. With the 

 largest working body of agTicultural scientists in any country in the 

 world, we have more organization and less union than is to be found 

 anywhere else. An attempt to bring into closer affiliation the work 

 of various agencies for agricultural science is believed by many to 

 be desirable, and the best means of effecting this to the greatest ad- 

 vantage of the science and the workers engaged in it is the question 

 under consideration. 



It is natural that many scientific workers should wish to maintain 

 an affiliation with a society devoted to the branch of basic science in 

 which they are primarily interested. Here the progress of the science 

 in its more abstract form and its applications in various lines natu- 

 rally appeals to the broader interest of the man. But he may also 

 wish to meet with men who are considering more specifically the 

 direct applications of science to the various phases of agricultural 

 problems. In the latter, conditions which preserve a breadth of 

 vision ma}^ well be provided, in order to avoid too narrow considera- 

 tion from confining association to a coterie of workers who are view- 

 ing questions from a rather narrow angle, and hence likely to lose 

 sight of other factors. Most questions and problems in this in- 



