EDITOEIAI.. B15 



A number of stations where the division of time has heretofore been 

 satisfactory, owing to the limited demand for agricultural instruction, 

 are now becoming embarrassed by the increased call for their servi - 

 in that line. These -rations frankly admit that unless additional funds 

 can be secured to provide adequately for the teaching work they can 

 not hope to maintain the high position in agricultural research which 

 they have occupied. This is one of the dangers of the increased 

 interest in agricultural education and the differentiation of agricul- 

 tural courses. The number of students increases and courses arc 

 multiplied, without increased appropriations or any material aid to 

 the teaching force, and the erstwhile investigator finds himself doing 

 full teaching work, with lecture- to be revised and adapted, examina- 

 tion paper-, practicums, faculty duties, and students coming to him 

 for advice and assistance. 



Every station director of experience will admit that the undivided 

 time of one man i- far more effective and valuable to the station than 

 half the time of two men with college duties. A- one speaker put it. 

 "In this matter two and two do not alway- make four. I am sure 

 that two half men are not anywhere equal to one whole man. and to 

 go -till further. 1 do not think that four quarter men are worth any- 

 thing" (in investigation). This -trikes the keynote of a popular 

 delusion. 



The effect of the dual position on the character of station work and 

 the development of agricultural investigation i- an important point to 

 be considered in this connection. There is a vast difference in the 

 quality of station work, growing out of the men themselves, and the 

 conditions under which they are working. Many men have been 

 placed upon the station staff a- a matter of expediency or custom who 

 are not suited to the work and who regard it as an added burden. 

 Because a man is a good teacher it doe- not follow that lie will make 

 a resourceful and energetic experimenter. Much of the work done at 

 the stations is not investigation or research in the proper sense of the 

 word. It i- merely the testing of thi- or that crop, this or that 

 method of culture or fertilizer, a comparison of rotation- or of feed- 

 ing ration-, or a demonstration of some fact which ha< been worked 

 out elsewhere. The nature of the ease prevent- it being more than thi-. 



If we look the ground over we -hall rind a- a very general rule 

 that our best investigation ha- been done by those worker- who have 

 had least teaching to do. and. conversely, that the stations wh 

 workers have had practically to carry their respective department- in 

 the college — and there have been many such — have adder! compara- 

 tively little to the -urn of agricultural knowledge. There are few 

 exceptions to this rule, and the converse condition i- -" common as 

 to be much in evidence and to keep down the average grade of 

 experiment station work in this country. 



