414 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Miinv men attribute their failure to achieve success as investigators 

 to their environment, when the trouble is really in themselves. Com- 

 plaints about lack of time and funds and opportunities count for very 

 little when they come from men who are evidently spreading- tie 

 scope of their operations beyond a reasona])le limit, or who can not 

 l)roduce well-conceived and carefully thought out plans of research. 

 When a station worker tells us in one breath that he can not investi- 

 gate because he is overloaded with teaching, and in the next informs 

 us that his spare time is occupied in the private management of a large 

 farm, or that he is on the lookout for an opening as college president, 

 we can hardly be expected to sympathize with him if he proves a 

 failure as an investigator. 



But on the other hand the failure of station officers to reach their 

 highest efficiency as investigators must in very many cases be attributed 

 to the conditions under which they are compelled to work. Without 

 doubt many advantages have accrued to our stations from their 

 union with colleges, but many evils have also ]>efallen theni because 

 of the crude condition of these educational institutions. 



Too many of our agricultural colleges are even yet in the high-school 

 stage, and the number of class-room periods required of members of 

 their faculties is reckoned on that basis. This condition is aggravated 

 by the recent popularity of these colleges, which has swelled the num- 

 ber of their students beyond their capacity to accommodate, and has 

 thus materially increased the labors of the teaching staff. When to 

 this is added the success of our experiment stations to such an extent 

 that their correspondence and outside calls for assistance have swelled 

 to vast proportions, and the success of the farmers' institutes and other 

 forms of college extension work among farmers, the demands uj)on 

 many of our station workers have exceeded their powers of physical 

 and mental endurance. 



The recent splendid liberality of man}' of our State legislatures 

 toward the agricultural colleges in provisions for their equipment 

 with buildings and apparatus is most praiseworthy, but even this has, 

 at least temporarily, laid heavier and most distracting burdens on our 

 station workers. Enlarged material equipment and increased num- 

 bers of students are, without doubt, putting heavy burdens upon col- 

 lege presidents and boards of management, who must care for these 

 things and proA'ide teachers for the daily routine of college courses. 

 Their task is a most difficult one, and the pu])lic needs to have a more 

 intelligent appreciation of its requirements. 



It is nevertheless very important that the just claims of the experi- 

 ment stations to the best services of able investigators should be duly 

 considered and adequately met. 



