EDITORIAL. 403 



work, and in preparing reports. Such an outline ought to be a condi- 

 tion of allotment of funds among departments. 



The outlining of plans for experiments and investigations gives 

 opportunity for weighing their importance and for scrutinizing the 

 plan of individual undertakings. There is need for this. It is quite 

 clear that if some of the experiments going on to-day had to be out- 

 lined as projects and passed upon by a discriminating director, they 

 would not be undertaken or continued at this stage of station develop- 

 ment, but would be turned over to the extension department ; and it is 

 equally certain that if there were a critical review or revision of lines 

 which are going on year after year, because they have got in running 

 order and require little attention, there would be a discontinuance or 

 bringing to a head of many activities which are expensive of land, 

 time, and labor, and are not in harmony with the present view or spirit 

 of station work. Some experiments gain in value by long continuation, 

 if carefully conducted and studied with discrimination in the light 

 of what has gone before ; but in other cases these long-continued ex- 

 periments without change of plan become cumulative evidence of their 

 inability to contribute to understanding. The latter class, instead of 

 being entitled to the veneration of age, should long ago have given 

 way to a search for more effective methods and more productive 

 studies. 



Much of the work in the field and the feed lot has reached a stage 

 where it calls for critical analysis and segregation. Now that the 

 line is being more sharply drawn between the acquisition of new 

 knowledge and the dissemination of current information is just the 

 time for the exercise of such discrimination — for making the station 

 work more objective and original and purposeful, and directed at a 

 broader understanding both of the results and of conditions. 



The planning and arranging for this is an administrative problem. 

 It calls for a definition of policj^ and a weighing of the various types 

 of work in the light of twenty-five years of experience. To a certain 

 extent it calls for more active direction. Like the carrying out of 

 any program, it implies some degree of restriction in the freedom of 

 individual action. Experience has shown the importance and rea- 

 sonableness of this. Especially in the case of the more immature 

 workers, supervision and control are necessary. It is doubtful wis- 

 dom to invest a man with " academic freedom " to conduct a long 

 and expensive series of field experiments until it is certain that he 

 has availed himself of what others have done before him, and ha? 

 developed a method of attack adapted to the case and capable of 

 yielding results of scientific accuracy. 



The economical and effective use of the funds of a station require 

 discretion in the selection of topics to be studied, care in planning 

 these studies, and the following up of the work as it progresses. In 



