1919] EDITORIAL. 303 



There has been a tendency also to enlarge the station plant in 

 various directions, to acquire considerable areas for the station in 

 order to secure tracts suited to extensive field experiments and plan- 

 tations, the remainder being carried by the station in general crops ; 

 and donations of farms or lands to the college have been turned over 

 to the station to administer and to develop for such use as might be 

 made of them in experimentation. The responsibilities and over- 

 head expense are thus added to the station, and may result in a con- 

 siderable diversion of funds and attention. Conditions may even 

 prevent for the time being much real station work being done in 

 connection with them. Indeed, there are instances in which persons 

 on the station staff are doing no real experimental work, but are man- 

 aging and developing tracts or herds or other features which may 

 ultimately be used in part for experimental purposes. The staff is 

 therefore enlarged by this amount without corresponding return, and 

 rlie station budget is enlarged to carry on these non-experimental 

 features. The station seems to have more staff and more funds than 

 are available for its real work. 



It is easy to underestimate the effect of such added responsibilities 

 and the influence they ma}' have on the station. It will be charged 

 by the public with these funds as well as with the success of the en- 

 terprise, and it may not always be clear that it is making adequate 

 return in actual experimental work. A large enterprise conducted 

 in the name of the station without a substantial amount of experi- 

 mental work is likely not to make a very favorable impression or to 

 strengthen the station in appeals for funds. 



The extent to. which these large operations are engaged in is indi- 

 cated in a way by the sales of station farm products. These now 

 amount to considerably over a million dollars a year. They are thus 

 no longer incidental features but one of the main elements in the 

 total revenues of the stations. To a large extent, however, they rep- 

 resent a turnover rather than an addition to revenue, sometimes a 

 net financial loss. Even where they seem to be commercially profit- 

 able a false impression is created if they exceed the actual needs of 

 the station for experimentation. 



There is opportunity for economy of both effort and funds in a 

 revision of the project list so as to direct the work to live topics and 

 confine the expense to substantial undertakings involving real in- 

 quiry. Agricultural investigation is an effort to determine and relate 

 phenomena in such a way as to make the art intelligible and practice 

 more effective. Experiments which only half answer a question do 

 not meet the needs. Superficial work which must be gone over again 

 multiplies the effort. 



