404 EXPERIMENT STATION EECOED. 



means that the results of their activities have an interest and value 

 quite outside the agricultural public. 



In many cases, however, the funds available for printing have not 

 kept pace with the increase in the amount to be printed. Another 

 important factor is the virtual doubling of the station mailing lists 

 within the last decade in response to the growing popular desire for 

 information, this appreciably increasing the size and cost of editions 

 and adding to the demands upon the printing funds. Such condi- 

 tions, unless remedied, would inevitably lead to a congestion of 

 unpublished data, sometimes sufficiently great to jeopardize its time- 

 liness and detract from its ultimate practical value. As a matter 

 of fact, several of the stations are already facing this situation. 



The scientific journals have performed a useful service in relieving 

 a part of this congestion. The publication of the results of agricul- 

 tural research in journals devoted to such general sciences as chemis- 

 try, botany, biology, and the like has also done much to secure 

 recognition for it. There has been a greater certainty of bringing 

 the research to the attention of workers in foreign countries and to 

 others especially interested, with less likelihood of unintelligent 

 criticism. In many cases there has been the special advantage of 

 relieving the station bulletins of a considerable amount of detailed 

 data of slight general interest, such as the minutias of technical 

 methods, complex matliematical formulas, and other material of a 

 strictly technical nature. 



Another frequent benefit was set forth by Dr. Pearl, which applies 

 to the stations and to the station men themselves. In publishing in 

 this way, "the work will be judged by the editorial board of the 

 journal strictly on its own merits as a piece of scientific research, 

 and on no other basis. Journal publication provides each director 

 with an opportunity to see the scientific work of his station* as others 

 see it. Scientific papers are not unlike favorite sons — it is often very 

 difficult for the fond parent to discern in them any faults at all. In- 

 dependent editorial boards, on the other hand, do that sort of thing 

 very well. If an independent chemical, or botanical, or zoological, 

 or bacteriological, or agricultural journal refuses to publish a paper 

 submitted from a station, the author and the director are bound to 

 come to the conclusion, since no other is possible, that in some way 

 or other this paper does not measure up to a standard which disinter- 

 ested experts in the given field of laiowledge regard as the irreducible 

 minimum below which sound scientific work can not fall. On the 

 other hand, if it is accepted the work receives the hall-mark of stand- 

 ard character." It is admitted, of course, that the limitations of 

 space or of the field of a journal may lead to the rejection of papers, 

 and it is true, moreover, that certain phases of station investigation 



