306 EXPEEIMENT STATION RECORD. 



the provision of special facilities for reaching them. An inevitable 

 result is much loss of time and often neglect, or the leaving of an 

 essential part of the work to subordinates. 



In a paper before the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural 

 Science last November, Mr. David Fairchild, of this Department, 

 made a forceful plea for the small laboratory in agricultural investi- 

 gation, and drew an attractive picture of its advantages and the favor- 

 able atmosphere it engenders. Starting with the generalization that 

 most discoveries in agriculture are the result of concentrated study, 

 and that most men have not the ability to become oblivious to what is 

 going on about them in a noisy building occupied by student classes, 

 he strongly emphasized the necessity for uninterrupted periods of 

 quiet as conducive to productive investigation and discovery. He 

 likened the wasted energy in the stopping and starting of a train of 

 thought to that in the stopping and starting of a locomotive, affirm- 

 ing that " the deeper the degree of concentration the longer it takes 

 to pick up the train of thought after an interruption." He cited ex- 

 amples of the fatiguing effect of such interruption, and of its some- 

 times leading to the abandoning for the time being of attempts to 

 prosecute the particular study in hand. 



For the study of growing plants particularly the advantage of the 

 small laboratory in close proximity to the material was well illus- 

 trated. Such a laboratory or simple shelter is located in the midst of 

 the things that are to be studied. Here the investigator is on the 

 firing line. The forces and material to be studied come directly under 

 observation. The range of possible events is so narrow that every 

 occurrence throws light on the problem in hand rather than merely 

 alluring the investigator into other tempting fields. There is nothing 

 to distract or confuse the mind, all sounds or sights are part of the 

 problem or bear upon it. The very breath of freshness on the 

 material to be studied brings inspiration and suggestion as well as 

 accuracy of observation. 



Again, Mr. Fairchild considered the effects of huge laboratories 

 upon the men working in them, and the development of the labora- 

 tor}'^ routine habit of life and thought. He maintained that " our 

 great laboratories are invaded more than we perhaps realize by the 

 executive atmosphere, and their very size and the fact that they are 

 under one roof make this invasion almost unavoidable." It is true 

 also that our large laboratories have sometimes served to gratify an 

 innate taste for collecting apparatus which does not always improve 

 them as workshops, robs men of their resourcefulness, and sometimes 

 occupies them in dilettante manipulation. The xQvy completeness of 

 equipment may induce a comfortable satisfaction which is fatal to the 

 spirit of investigation. Instances could be cited in which the com- 



