708 EXPERIMENT STATIOX RECORD. 



To become appropriate lines of work for an experiment station, 

 economic studies need to be clearly conceived and definitely drawn. 

 As pointed out, the station's work is not in any primary sense the 

 gathering of statistics or the making of surveys or the tabulation of 

 individual experience. Economic studies, like the projects for in- 

 vestigation in the principles of production, require careful planning 

 in advance, and should imply a rigid testing of the reliabilitj' of 

 available data. They should contemplate an analysis and interpreta- 

 tion of the l)roader underlying meaning of the results, for otherwise 

 the facts will remain isolated, disconnected facts of little dynamic 

 force or value in a broad way. There are certain classes of statistics 

 which are relative rather than absolute and which can be correlated 

 with sets of conditions or systems of practice. These enable the econ- 

 omist to get at fairly definite and conclusive underlying principles. 



There is no lack of opportunity for studies of this kind. Such 

 questions, for example, turn on the economizing of land, labor, and 

 capital. It has been said that in the elimination of labor waste lies 

 greater opportunities for the constructive economist than in any 

 other direction. A broad group of questions relating to intensive 

 farming and its economy are suggested by the advice now being 

 freely and widely given for more intensive cultivation, smaller farms, 

 greater specialization, etc. How far this is sound under present con- 

 ditions, and how far it is to be regarded as the solution of our agri- 

 cultural problems and of cheaper foodstuffs, we must look quite 

 largely to the economist to tell us. It would be interesting to know 

 also how far the introduction of more scientific and rational methods 

 might possibly modify the law of diminishing returns. 



In the future w^ork of the stations in the field of rural economics 

 the difference must be distinguished betw^een the formulation of 

 economic facts and principles of agriculture on the one hand, 

 and the active effort to put these into effective practice through the 

 organization of farmers and otherwise. The one is investigation, 

 the other is teaching or propaganda work. The development of 

 effective means and plans for organization seems to occupy a middle 

 ground. Larger attention to the economic features of farming will 

 involve both station and extension activities, and the distinction be- 

 tween these will need to be clearly maintained. 



The time has come when it is well for the experiment stations seri- 

 ously to consider how widely the fundamental purposes and tradi- 

 tions of station work, taken in connection with the funds available 

 and the need for investigation in agricultural production, will per- 

 mit them to engage to any large extent in economic studies ; and for 

 each State to consider how it may best provide for gathering miscel- 

 laneous farm and other agricultural statistics which tlie economist 

 will require for the formulation of the principles of rural economy. 



