1017] EDITOEIAL. 309 



which they injuriously affect foliage, has been very extensive and 

 has in large measure reduced the practice of spraying to a science. 

 In this connection the working out of the methods of dust spraying 

 and its advantages under certain conditions should be mentioned. 

 After years of unsatisfactory results in the use of gaseous insecti- 

 cides in mills and grain elevators, striking results have been ob- 

 tained in ridding these buildings of insect pests by the simple use of 

 heat. 



The study on bacillary white diarrhea in poultry and the means 

 by which it spreads, and the finding of a reliable method of diag- 

 nosis by which it may be eliminated from breeding flocks, have led 

 to a general campaign against the disease in several States. 



The above will be recognized merely as examples in a long list of 

 investigations which have already been productive of important 

 results or are pointing to such conclusions. It is one of the attri- 

 butes of a scientific discovery that the credit for it usually can not be 

 ascribed entirely to a single person or institution. It develops in 

 part from work which has gone before and has made possible the 

 new or particular application. This is often true of the examples 

 here cited, which recognizes that the stations are not working alone 

 in the great field of agriculutral inquiry. 



There are at present nearly five hundred distinct projects being 

 conducted at the stations with the partial or complete support of 

 the Adams fund. This indicates the extent of the enterprise. These 

 projects are in charge of three hundred and eighty leaders and 

 associates. No two projects are alike; each is an individual under- 

 taking. Their diversity shows how far they are removed from any 

 standardizing influence. 



Such are some of the developments and evidences of research 

 activity which have come in the past decade. Although this prog- 

 ress can not all be ascribed to the Adams Act, it is due in consid- 

 erable measure to its direct influence along with the continued ex- 

 perience in investigation. The field has grown to be much larger 

 and the task much deeper than seemed at first. Perhaps one of 

 the greatest truths borne in upon us is the realization that the 

 task is almost endless — that we can never touch bottom in all there 

 is to know about the simplest subjects with which our investigation 

 concerns itself. 



Agricultural research has as yet only " stirred a few grains of 

 sand on the shore," but it has made a beginning which seems large 

 in the perspective in which it is viewed and in what it promises. 

 The stations have made some contributions to the theoretical rubbish- 

 heap, which is to their credit, for it proves that originality has been 



