EDITORIAL. 603 



tnre, through persons commissioned for tbe purpose, will exercise a 

 supervision over the work and expenditures of the institutions which 

 receive government aid. It will also publish an annual report of tbe 

 work of tbe stations, and periodically will give a general survey of their 

 operations. 



It will be seen that while the government plans for the establishment 

 and maintenance of the higher-grade institutions, it looks to local com- 

 munities, organ beat ions, and public- spirited persons lor tbe establishment 

 of fields and farms where tbe work is to be of a more practical and 

 popular nature or for purposes of demonstration and is to be restricted 

 to the study of local questions. After these more or less private insti- 

 tutions have been established they may receive government aid in the 

 form of annual appropriations, chiefly for defraying the expenses of the 

 staff of the station and purchasing books and scientific equipment, or 

 they may be given the use of government lands, animals for breeding, 

 seeds of improved varieties of plants, etc. They may also have the 

 benefit of advice and information from the specialists attached to the 

 ministry of agriculture. 



The object of the institutions which the plan contemplates is a double 

 one — that of experimental investigation on both scientific and practical 

 questions in agriculture, and the dissemination of information among 

 the common people by means of fields of demonstration, popular lec- 

 tures, and publications. The scheme bears evidence of thorough 

 familiarity with the history of the experiment station movements of 

 other countries and the tendencies which have developed. In its 

 elaboration the experience of these institutions has been profited by, 

 and the successful features of different countries embodied. As a 

 result, we have a comprehensive system of stations, fields, farms, etc., 

 each class with a definite field of work and designed to serve a definite 

 purpose in the advancement of the science and the practice of agricul- 

 ture. Taken in connection with the proposed system for agricultural 

 education, it will be seen that there is no confusion as to the work of 

 education, investigation, application, demonstration, and the dissemi- 

 nation of popular information. The need for effort along each of these 

 lines is recognized and separate provision for it is made in the schemes 

 elaborated. When the condition of agricultural practice in Russia is 

 considered — the primitive implements which are used, the irrational 

 systems which are followed, and the general lack of progress as com- 

 pared with that made in other countries — it can not but be apparent 

 that the field of usefulness for institutions of the different classes con- 

 templated is an unusually broad one, and that the movement will 

 eventually result in great benefit to the agriculture of that country. 



According to a recent Russian article on the agricultural experiment 

 stations of that country, there are now in Russia sixty eight stations 

 of various kinds. The first station was established in 1864 at the 



