EDITORIAL. 305 



stations be so administered as to insure the supply of all suitable facil- 

 ities for work ; and that the integrity of long-established experimental 

 fields should be maintained." 



In its inquiries regarding the relation of inspection work to other 

 forms of station activity the committee finds that " the consensus of 

 opinion leans toward an ideal station established for the purpose of 

 resetirch work, where little or no inspection work should impose a 

 burden on the station ; but that special conditions arise in many of the 

 States making it of advantage to both the station and the State for 

 the former to undertake such work," 



The committee recommends that " where it seems best that the sta- 

 tion should undertake to do inspection work (1) special funds should 

 be provided to cover fully all expenses of such work; (2) where any 

 considerable amount of inspection work is to be done, a separate divi- 

 sion or department of the station be organized for carrying on the 

 work; (3) with the exception of the administrative officers, the work 

 be done by an independent force, paid wholly from the special funds 

 appropriated for inspection ; (4) special laboratories for carrying out 

 the anah^tical work in connection Avith inspection work be provided." 



With regard to the relation of station men to instruction, the com- 

 mittee finds that " the opinion is almost unanimous that research work 

 conduces to effective teaching, so long as it does not become so engross- 

 ing as to cause the teacher to neglect his classes." 



The committee therefore recommends " as an ideal policy, to be 

 adopted as rapidly as the conditions of the various stations will per- 

 mit, that those charged with research be completely freed from all 

 responsibility for routine class-room teaching; and that as a step 

 in this direction the teaching required of the investigator be limited 

 to a maximum of three hours per week during one semester annually, 

 to be given along the line of his specialty." 



The recommendations of the committee will thus be seen to 

 emphasize particularly the necessity, from the standpoint of scien- 

 tific research in agriculture, for the sharp differentiation of such 

 research work from educational propaganda and police duties and 

 give full recognition to the fact that to secure a high order of this 

 research work, the station organization and policy must be such 

 that the investigator for at least the greater part of his time is free 

 to devote undivided thought and efl'ort to the work of investigation. 



Practicall3\ the greatest difficulty in attaining the ideals set forth 

 in these reports grows out of the fact that in many cases our stations 

 as organized under state laws are composite institutions. They are 

 required to carry on control work, demonstrations, farmers' institutes, 

 and the general diffusion of agricultural information. There will, 

 therefore, be need of more or less reorganization of the stations, as 



