602 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. [Vol. 36 



The main question is as to just the part they should play. Some 

 workers are feeling that the opportunity there is less than in certain 

 other avenues — that the occasion calls for putting present knowledge 

 into effective use rather than for further accumulation. According 

 to this view, the chief burden will rest most heavily on the exten- 

 sion service and the other agencies for promoting intimately the 

 business of producing food and clothing. But even if this be true, 

 the experiment stations have their part to perform, and it is by no 

 means a small or insignificant one. 



The experiment station is a practical institution in its final reach and 

 purpose ; it pursues science for the benefit of agriculture, which is a 

 practical art. It is a source of new information, of advanced knowledge, 

 of expert advice and suggestion; it should be the chief original 

 source of such information in its locality. This makes it resourceful 

 in suggestion and extremely helpful in a time when special emphasis 

 is laid on the endeavor to mal^e every effort count in greater food 

 production and the avoidance of loss and waste. Its corps of experts 

 should be found useful in organizing and planning the agricultural 

 campaign, as well as making it efficient through indirect efforts. 



As organizations, the experiment stations should in effect place 

 themselves at the disposal of the country to do the special work which 

 they are organized for, adapting themselves in considerable measure 

 to the present need. This can be done without seriously interfering 

 with established lines of investigation which would suffer if neg- 

 lected, or very radically changing the general program of activity. 

 Every station has a considerable amount of miscellaneous work and 

 routine activity, flexible in quantity and variable in character. Every 

 station also performs a considerable amount of experimental work 

 and testing designed to give results of quite immediate practical 

 application, and especially adapted to changed economic or local 

 conditions. At a time like thib such efforts may be regulated and 

 directed, and if need be enlarged, so as to aid in an important way 

 in increasing the outcome of agriculture, avoiding loss, and utilizing 

 unusual resources, as has the work of the stations in European 

 countries. 



Manifestly the first requirement is to recognize the position and the 

 opportunity of the stations at this time, and to a considerable extent 

 this has already been done. They need also to adapt their attitude 

 toward the work in hand, so that they will think and observe outside 

 of the special field they have blocked out and have been following in 

 the past, and will not shrink from interruption if need be. In other 

 words, if they are to realize the full measure of their opportunity 

 they can not remain too exclusively absorbed in their routine investi- 

 gations or the formulated plan for experiment. As leaders of agri- 

 cultural thought, they need to be ready to see the field and take the 



