EDITOEIAL. 415 



The value of experiment stations as agencies for the improvement 

 of farm practice, and as instruments for the enlaro-ement of the science 

 of agriculture on which the courses in our agricultural schools and 

 colleges are based, is becoming more apparent with each passing year. 

 Theoretically this is more generally acknowledged l)y the managers of 

 our colleges: but many of them are still urging what they consider 

 valid reasons for refusing to transmute this theory into practice. 

 And our observations of the past year convince us that thci'o has never 

 been a time when it was more necessary to plead on behalf of our 

 successful station workers that they be relieved from onerous and 

 multifold routine duties, in order that their vigor may l)e long main- 

 tained and their best energies be given to experimental research on 

 behalf of agriculture. 



More attention should, in our judgment, be given by the managers 

 of our stations to the hours of labor required of, and the seasons of 

 rest afforded and even enforced upon, our suOcessful station workers. 

 After proper training for research has been acquired, the length of 

 the period during which sustained efforts of the highest order are 

 successfully made is a most important factor in the success of the 

 agricultural investigator. What a waste and loss when the man 

 whose early career gives promise of much fruit of research breaks 

 down in middle life, and either dies or lives on in the shadows of 

 mediocrity. Good investigators are exceedingly rare, and it is reall}^ 

 the duty of boards of control and college presidents to seek out such 

 men and to guard them carefully against overwork and dissipation of 

 energy. 



We plead, therefore, for a broader and deeper study of the human 

 side of our institutions of agricultural research, in order that there 

 may be a richer and more continuous return for the great outla}' which 

 our people are making in the hope of beneffting agriculture, and that 

 there ma}^ be a greater enriching of the intellectual side of our agri- 

 cultural colleges, the permanent success of which depends after all 

 very largely on the work of their research departments. 



In former reports it has been urged that it is unwise for stations 

 w4th limited funds to maintain so many different departments that the 

 funds available for the expenses of experiments other than salaries are 

 very small. This we would continue to urge, at the same time recog- 

 nizing that under existing conditions it is practically essential that even 

 stations having only the Hatch fund for their maintenance shall be 

 divided into several departments. It is therefore all the more desir- 

 able that in some way additional funds shall be obtained to enable the 

 stations to conduct their operations on a larger scale. 



More funds are also required to enable the stations to engage in 

 experimental inquiries in lines which the}" have hitherto neglected. 



