EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. XXX. April, 1914. No. 5, 



The change which has taken place in the volume of agricultural 

 writings since the journal entitled Agricultural Science ceased pub- 

 lication in 1894 is strikingly illustrated by the present overcrowded 

 condition of the many scientific journals which bear upon that field. 

 At that time a single journal standing for agricultural science in the 

 United States experienced difficulty in securing the necessary ma- 

 terial and support to warrant continuance at the end of an eight-year 

 experiment. Now the reports of agricultural investigations are 

 scattered widely through scientific journals, with numerous organs 

 for special branches, and workers in certain lines even find it neces- 

 sary to look abroad for a suitable avenue of publication. 



The volume of investigation of direct interest to agriculture has 

 immensely increased, even in the last decade. This is largely be- 

 cause the work of the agricultural experiment stations, the National 

 Department of Agriculture, and similar institutions has been greatly 

 strengthened, yielding a large amount of material which is thought 

 better suited to scientific journals than to bulletins and reports. But 

 aside from this, the interest of a wide range of workers and teachers 

 in the scientific aspects of agriculture has been wonderfully quickened, 

 and the field has appealed increasingly to men not directly identified 

 with the subject. There is now both a producing and a reading pub- 

 lic of large size — an acceptance of economic papers on agricultural 

 subjects in many avenues where they were formerly not favored. 



The chief difficulty at present in securing publication for such 

 papers in the leading scientific journals is the space limitation, and 

 this is becoming serious. Practically all the journals are overloaded 

 with material, with the result that publication is slow, a year or 

 more sometimes elapsing after a paper is accepted. This is mani- 

 festly unsatisfactory, for promptness in publication is highly de- 

 sirable, and interest is often diminished if the delay is long con- 

 tinued. It is discouraging to those who have important new work to 

 report. The establishment of new journals seems to relieve the situa- 

 tion only temporarily. There must be a practical limit to the num- 

 ber of these, and the remedy for the present congestion must be 

 largely looked for elsewhere than in indefinite extension of agencies. 



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