10 EXPERIMENT STATION KECOED. • 



The vast increase in scope of the original activities of the Office, 

 and especially the addition to its duties of the special investigations 

 in irrigation, drainage, and human nutrition, necessitated a large 

 increase in its personnel and facilities. The initial corps of three 

 employees had grown at the time of the reorganization to about two 

 hundred and seventy-five, of whom over half were engaged in field 

 work outside of Washington. The funds for its maintenance rose 

 from $10,000 in 1888 to $1,930,780 in 1915. 



To the student of governmental institutions, the Office of Experi- 

 ment Stations has presented an example of an agency exercising 

 chiefly advisory functions. Although charged with administrative 

 duties toward the funds for experiment stations, it has relied less 

 on the authority of law than on its influence in promoting the 

 development and the well-being of the experiment station system. 

 In accordance with the Hatch Act, it has been an integral part of 

 that system, and in a broad sense it has sought to realize the part 

 somewhat vaguely set forth in the clause leading to its establishment. 



From the first the Office has maintained close and sympathetic 

 relations with the stations throughout the entire country, studying 

 their conditions and problems at first hand. From these studies 

 and the history of investigation, standards of work and of organiza- 

 tion have been set forth, and the effort has been made to stand 

 between the stations and influences which did not represent their 

 best interests in the long run. The fact that this relationship has 

 been so largely voluntary and informal, and in a sense a personal one, 

 rather than a strictly official one operating under force of law, has 

 shown the mutual confidence and understanding which have devel- 

 oped through these twenty-seven years. Stimulation and assistance 

 rather than restraint or attempt at centralized direction has been 

 the guiding motive at all times. 



The same principles have very largely determined the course of 

 action in the special lines of service which have been added to its 

 more general duties from time to time, and this will continue with- 

 out interruption in the enlarged field of the States Relations Service. 



