EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. VI. No. 3. 



The act of Congress making appropriations for the agricultural 

 experiment stations for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1895, provides 

 for the first time for supervision of the expenditures of the stations by 

 United States authorities, in the following words: 



The Secretary of Agriculture shall prescribe the form of the annual financial 

 stat-ement required by section three of the said act of March second, eighteen hun- 

 dred and eighty-seven; shall ascertain whether the expenditures under the appropri- 

 ation hereby made are in accordance with the provisions of the said act, and shall 

 make report thereon to Cougress. 



It will be observed that these provisions do not in any way infringe 

 upon the autonomy of the stations. The administration of the funds 

 is left, as before, wholly to the State authorities. Under the guidance 

 of these authorities the stations are to be managed with " due regard 

 to the varying conditions and needs of the respective States and Ter- 

 ritories." The United States will not, however, as in the past, be con- 

 tent to allow the money ai)propriated from the national Treasury for 

 agricultural investigations to be spent without any accounting to its 

 own officers. The expenditures and the work of the stations are to be 

 formally scrutinized by the Secretary of Agriculture, and a report of 

 his examination is to be presented to Congress. This should enable 

 Congress to take more intelligent action with refv3renceto the just mer- 

 its and needs of the stations, and at the same time it should strengthen 

 the stations in the estiniation of the country in so far as their work is 

 efficiently and wisely done, while it should protect them against vague 

 accusations of misusing public funds, which perhaps derive their force 

 chiefly from the fact that no one can authoritatively deny them. 



In this connection it is interesting to observe that M. Tisserand, in 

 his most recent report on the experiment stations in France,' in his 

 capacity as Director of Agriculture, protests against such centraliza- 

 tion of management of the stations in that country in the Ministry of 

 Agriculture as would involve their complete administration and main- 

 tenance by the general government. At present these stations are 

 largely under the control of the local authorities in the districts {depart- 



' Bui. Min. Agr. France, 1894, No. 3, p. 229. 



175 



