4 EXPEEIMENT STATION EECOED. 



Avork and by cooperation where that is feasible. As a clearing house 

 this Office can facilitate intercommunication between the stations, 

 collate the results of their work, and facilitate its most advantageous 

 coordination. It can serve as an exchange or distributing point for 

 information in two ways, negotiating betw^een the stations and the 

 agricultural public on the one side and between the stations and the 

 world of science on the other. 



" One of the means by which this Department can mediate between 

 the stations and the agricultural public is the issuing of a series of 

 farmers' bulletins, which should- collate the results of station work 

 bearing upon special topics, and the teachings of other research, and 

 put the whole into a form so plain that the intelligent farmer will 

 understand it, so brief that he will read it through, and so practical 

 that he will take it to heart. Thus while each station is distributing 

 its own results to the farmers of its own State, this instrumentality 

 will help to make the several stations serviceable to the agriculture 

 of the whole country. 



"As a mediator between the stations and the world of science, this 

 branch of the Department should be in a condition to collate the re- 

 sults of experimental research in this country and in Europe, and 

 jDublish them in convenient form for the use of the station workers 

 and others interested in the science of agriculture. The past forty 

 years has been a period of great and increasing activity in agricul- 

 tural inquiry, especially in Europe. The mass of material accumu- 

 lated is large and rapidly growing ; it is mostly in foreign languages, 

 and in costly journals, publications of learned societies, monographs, 

 and other books, which but few of our workers have, and which with 

 lack of leisure, but few could sufficiently utilize if they had them. 

 Indexes of literature of given subjects and, especially, abstracts of 

 experimental research are wanted. 



" One need is a journal for the stations, to contain accounts of their 

 current research, abstracts of similar work in this and in other coun- 

 tries, and other matters of mutual interest. What is wanted is a pub- 

 lication, properly edited, adapted to our special conditions, appearing 

 regularly and giving the latest information, doing for workers in 

 these lines what Die Landwirthschaf tlichen VersucJis-Stationen, the 

 Centralhlatt fiir AgHcuUurchemie, and other publications do for the 

 German stations; in short., a means to provide prompt and constant 

 intercommunication between the stations and bring them from out- 

 side the things they want to know. 



" Information is also greatly needed in regard to past work and its 

 results. This would be probably best brought to the stations in the 

 form of monographs on special subjects. ... It is important to 

 avoid going over old ground, to start where others have left off, and 

 with the benefit of their experience." 



