302 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. [Vol. 41 



drances and obstacles which it ought to be possible to remove. There 

 are also some economies which might be effected by a redirection of 

 certain features that have grown up in times of less stringency or 

 persisted from the early days. 



Since sound economy is a matter of good administrative judgment, 

 adequate provision for administration is one of the prime essentials. 

 During the period of the war there were unusual calls upon adminis- 

 trative officers, and to some extent their attention was diverted from 

 the affairs of the station. In not a few cases the stations have begun 

 to show the effects of this, and with the shortage of funds and of per- 

 sons suited to do their work larger attention to their administrative 

 details will be necessary to prevent their drifting or going backward. 



The station work is not of less special character or less entitled to 

 administrative oversight than the extension Avork; and research as 

 the most advanced and intensive phase of agricultural education 

 needs a type of administrative supen'ision which, with a keen under- 

 standing of its function and methods, will studiously organize and 

 stimulate its activities so as to best utilize the resources at its com- 

 mand. Such an administration is fundamental to the proper recog- 

 nition of values and to adjustment to the straitened circumstances. 



In a general way the function of the experiment station has be- 

 come clearer and more sharply differentiated year by year. There 

 are certain features, however, which have been adhered to and which 

 at the present time may afford a means of more definitely conserving 

 funds and effort. 



We no longer think of the management of large farms with inci- 

 dental experimental features as being properly within the scope of 

 the experiment station. There has been much improvement in this 

 respect since the time when the college farm was turned over to the 

 station to operate, and experimental work is now generally conducted 

 on a more restricted and intensive scale. There are still numerous 

 cases, however, where the station as such is responsible for the man- 

 agement of the entire farm, or of special features such as the poultry 

 department, dairy, orchard, greenhouses, etc., and supplies the facili- 

 ties for instruction as well as for experimentation. If in such cases 

 the college contril^utes to their support there is no clear division 

 and the responsibility rests with the station organization. Funds 

 appropriated by the State for station purposes are employed in the 

 support of these features, and men of the station staff give consider- 

 able of their time to their management. These workers are fre- 

 quently judged in no small measure by the success of their manage- 

 ment of these joint features in which the commercial element is 

 prominent, and naturally they soon realize it and are guided by it. 

 It tends to make the station work a secondary consideration. 



