6 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



at the beginning may account in many cases for subsequent mis- 

 understandings and embarrassments. 



An attempt was made to apply the rules which should govern the 

 relations of employer and employee in such specific problems of sta- 

 tion ethics as the use of station facilities and supplies for personal 

 profit or pleasure, the obligation of the station worker to keep ad- 

 equate records of his work which will always be available for station 

 use, and the station's property rights in all of the results of research. 

 This is a highly important matter upon which there has been a sur- 

 prising amount of laxity. The speaker held that " the individual is 

 not only morally bound to make such records, but ought to be 

 punished if he takes them away from their proper owners." More- 

 over, in absence of any agreement to the contrary, " these results, 

 so long as they are unpublished, are the exclusive property of the 

 institution and can not be used by the individual to his own advan- 

 tage in any way without its consent." 



As to the obligation resting upon a station worker who is afforded 

 special opportunities which increase his efficiency as an investigator 

 at a station's expense. Prof. Thatcher held that he " is ethically, 

 and should be legally, bound to remain at the institution until it 

 receives such return for its assistance in services of increased effi- 

 ciency as it shall deem proper. In justice to both the institution and 

 the individual the extent of this additional service should be clearly 

 understood before the obligation is undertaken and the advantage 

 enjoyed," but " increased efficiency, however acquired, should receive 

 increased remuneration." And in general, the salary should be a 

 recognition of ability and worth, and not an expression of offers 

 received from other institutions. " The ideal condition is realized 

 . . . when the institution carefully determines the market value of 

 the services it receives, and fixes its salaries and grants increases 

 accordingly." 



The central idea of Dr. C. E. Marshall's discussion of the ethics 

 of station work as between individuals was that " nearly every 

 problem in agTiculture may be attacked more effectively by the 

 united forces than by any single agency." 



Division of labor and cooperation therefore become of the highest 

 importance, although a satisfactory adjustment in this respect is 

 sometimes as difficult as it is important, and the greatest generosity 

 is necessary on the part of all involved — " the administrator moving 

 in one province, the research student in another, the one viewing 

 life and the world quite differently from the other. Even in dealing 

 with each other it is essential that broad and most charitable attitudes 

 be assumed by research men. ... An organization effected to foster 



