CONVENTION OP COLLEGES AND EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 19 



The station uses a voucher check, with different colors to indicate the funds 

 upon which the checks are drawn. The plan has worked well and has greatly 

 facilitated the assembling of receipts. The taking of inventories of station 

 property from time to time was recommended. 



In order to secure more efficient research, it is the plan in the Vermont 

 Station to assign the college work of a man who has both college and station 

 duties largely to a definite semester, leaving the rest of his time free for 

 uninterrupted station work. 



The budget system was commended by several other speakers, and Director 

 E, H. Webster stated that at the Kansas Station the project and not the 

 department was considered the unit, all apportionments of funds being made 

 on the project basis. 



Various methods of revising mailing lists were referred to, the general 

 opinion apparently' being that more frequent and careful revision is very 

 necessary. 



The station library. — In a paper on the station library, more particularly 

 as distinct from the college or university library. Dr. E. H. Jenkins expressed 

 the opinion that such a library should consist primarily of strictly technical 

 treatises and journals dictated by and suited to the needs of those actually 

 engaged in agricultural research and experiment. 



" A station, whatever its relations to an educational institution, should have 

 its own purely technical library, apart from any other, so that the members 

 of the station staff can always have at hand and very near their place of 

 work, and for as long a time as they need, the books and journals which they 

 are frequently using." In the Connecticut State Station " each head of a de- 

 partment is in a sense his own librarian. The books which he uses are in his 

 own study or laboratory and entirely in his charge. He and not the station 

 librarian lends when desired by others and keeps account of them, save for 

 a yearly general inventory made by the librarian of the station." 



In that institution the siJecialist is, and in the opinion of the speaker should 

 be, "the one solely responsible for the selection of books in his department, 

 subject only to the limitations imposed by the station budget, and when there 

 must be great economy, he should have his choice between books and other 

 apparatus, for books are certainly to be reckoned as a necessary part of his 

 apparatus. . . . Books are fully as important as apparatus. Their diligent 

 and intelligent use should precede the use of apparatus in any elaborate re- 

 search. They should be arranged according to the judgment or whim of the 

 user and constantly at hand to invite attention." 



" To the man who has the essence of an investigator in him, his library and 

 the free us.e of it at any hour of the day are absolutely necessary. His read- 

 ing will be a vital part of his work. To know how to read and what to read 

 is a part of his education. The library, with the exchange of thought which 

 it offers, the discipline in logic, the acquaintance with different habits of 

 thought, points of view, suggestions of the bearings of one set of facts on 

 problems waiting for solution, is increasingly important to the success of the 

 station." 



SECTION ON EXTENSION WOKK. 



Correspondence courses. — Prof. John Hamilton, of Washington, D. C, read a 

 paper on " The correspondence course ; its organization and methods," which 

 was followed by a considerable discussion relating to the experience and success 

 of such work at several institutions. There was much evidence that this form 

 of instruction has an important place in the general scheme of extension work 



