1919] 



EDITORIAIi. 609 



The executive committee also endorsed the need of substantial 

 salary increases, as pointed out in reports of the committees on col- 

 lege and experiment station organization and policy, a resolution of 

 the college section, and several speakers. It appeared that a large 

 number of the colleges had already felt the importance of such a 

 step and had provided for quite general advancement. 



Another matter which assumed considerable prominence in the 

 Chicago' meetings was that of cooperation in research. Reference 

 has been made to Dr. Angell's address, the central theme of which 

 was the organization of research and its effective coordination. He 

 combated the idea that the investigator should be given unqualified 

 freedom and protected in working alone. A large part of the re- 

 search product, he maintained, is not the result of special genius, and 

 great opportunity lies in the field of ordinary ability. There are 

 many scientific problems which no one scientist working alone is 

 equipped to handle. The need was emphasized for cooperation which 

 brings together scientists in neighboring fields; and cooperation in 

 planning was deemed well worth while even if it went no further. 



The subject was one of the leading features in the program of the 

 experiment station section, where a symposium was presented by 

 three speakers with formal papers. Director C. E. Thome read a 

 paper on cooperation and correlation in relation to soil fertility in- 

 vestigations, and Dr. H. C. Taylor discussed the reorganization of the 

 Office of Farm Management and the extensive plans for conducting 

 its studies in cooperation with the agricultural colleges and experi- 

 ment stations. 



The symposium developed the fact that there was considerable 

 difference of opinion on the value of cooperative effort in station 

 work, the type of investigation to which it is best suited being held 

 to be the large problems in which two or more States are particularly 

 interested, regional questions or those involving different climatic or 

 other factors, and broad basic problems in which a considerable 

 accumulation of data is important. The desirability of standard- 

 izing methods of experiment so that the results at different stations 

 will be comparable was emphasized, and it was suggested that in the 

 case of large questions the problem might be divided among a num- 

 ber of workers or that the field might be divided among stations on 

 the basis of climatic or other limiting conditions. The advantage 

 of organized effort in stimulating interest in specific problems was 

 pointed to; and frequent conference among investigators was made 

 a condition of successful cooperation or coordination. 



The importance of sufficient duplication to secure a high degree of 

 certainty was urged by several speakers, since it is of first impor- 

 tance that publicly supported research should be able to withstand 



