728 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



ential public sentiment, which will give encouragement and support to 

 the stations in their legitimate work and prevent outside interference. 

 This in reality is one of the most remarkable results of the experiment 

 station movement, and it is by no means confined to the older States 

 of the East where agriculture is more highly developed and special- 

 ized. The newer States, with no deeply grounded traditions of farm 

 practice and with crude methods and conditions, have been quite as 

 ready to embrace the work of the stations and to look to them for 

 advice and aid. 



In no other country does the experiment station occupy the same 

 position in its relations to the people that it does in America. In the 

 form in which we know it, it is distinctly American. It is this that 

 makes it of special interest to foreign visitors; but transplanted to 

 another country it becomes a quite different thing, because of the dif- 

 ference in environment. It is a product of American institutions and 

 American ideals. The great value of its services in the past is attested 

 on every hand, but those who have studied the station movement in 

 its relations to future development feel that an even more important 

 held is open to it. 



This field the Adams Act prepares the stations to occupy. It will 

 relieve them in some directions but will impose new responsibilities 

 upon them. To a large extent it provides for a new order of work 

 only possible to a limited extent before. The Adams Act differs from 

 the Hatch Act in the more restricted application to be made of the funds. 

 It provides specifically for the fundamental investigations of original 

 character which the work of the past few years has brought out such 

 a glaring need of. It is in many respects modeled on the second 

 Morrill Act, being ' w for the further and more complete endowment, 

 support, and maintenance r of the stations, to the end that they may 

 conduct "original researches or experiments bearing directly on the 

 agricultural industry of the United States." 



The evident intention was to provide a research fund, and not merely 

 to supplement the Hatch fund. The latter is more general in its pro- 

 visions, and is applicable to a wider range of uses. While it has been 

 a great stimulus to agricultural investigation, it has not been practica- 

 ble, perhaps not advisable, to restrict it except in a quite general way. 

 It has been employed for many purposes for which the Adams fund 

 obviously can not be. This difference between the Hatch and Adams 

 acts may not alwa} T s be apparent to the general public. It is all the 

 more important, therefore, that the distinction should be clear in the 

 minds of those charged with station work. 



The great service which the stations have been able to render to 

 agriculture is a product of investigation and research, more or less 

 remote, carried on somewhere and at some time, which has become a 

 part of the sum total of our knowledge. The more elementary testing 



