2 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



disconnected condition with reference to the societies for agricul- 

 tural science, and tlie desirability of an affiliation of the societies 

 having a similar purpose. The central officers of such an affiliation 

 could have done a great deal to further the preliminary arrangements 

 for such a gathering, planned an orderlj^ arrangement of dates, and, 

 by extending publicity as to the place and time of meetings and the 

 nature of the programs of the various organizations, prevented con- 

 fusion and made the various meetings more widely profitable. 

 Something of the overlapping could have been avoided by an arrange- 

 ment for joint sessions to consider topics of mutual interest to two or 

 more societies. 



But the advantage of affiliation need not stop here. Under pres- 

 ent conditions there is no provision for a general survey of the 

 various meetings, such as would be of interest not only to the stay- 

 at-homes, but as well to those who were obliged to choose between 

 sessions held in different places at the same time. Except for such 

 a brief account as this journal is able to gather, there is no bringing 

 together in abstract of the proceedings of these meetings, all of 

 Vvdiich, as a matter of general information at least, are of interest 

 to a large number of people. 



Each society or association will provide for the separate publica- 

 tion of its proceedings, in varying form and size, and the distribu- 

 tion of these proceedings will usually be confined to members of the 

 individual societies. In some cases libraries will receive copies only 

 through the generosity of a member. None of these reports will 

 make a volume of sufficient size for binding, but each will go out in 

 pamphlet form, and as such subject to the vicissitudes of such docu- 

 ments. Several societies will probably not publish the results of their 

 meetings in any form, the only record for futui'e information and 

 guidance being the secretary's minutesi, which in more than one in- 

 stance have become lost after a few years and a few rotations in 

 office. 



This is an unfortunate situation. It is chaotic and without organi- 

 zation, and is a reflection on the present condition of agricultural 

 science. 



The transactions of a scientific society have a permanent value. It 

 is true that, with the other agencies for publication at present 

 afforded, men need not look to the transactions of learned societies as 

 a means of presenting their investigations before the world, as they 

 once did ; but the discussions and round tables and conferences have 

 a permanent value as reflecting the point of view, and they have 

 a current interest for a wide circle of people. They furnish the only 

 avenue we now have for criticism and discussion, which, by the way, 

 is a great lack in agricultural science at the present time. The 

 Record reviews the published work of the many agencies now en- 



