420 RECORDING AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS. 



once 1)6 torn out and sent in to Head Office with the monthly 

 or weekly report of the station. Every such record should he 

 sig'ned hy the officer and stamped with a date stamp when 

 received at the office. A note should he made on the pas^e 

 of the hook as to the date on which that report was sent in. 

 This saves the time and labour of writing' out a report from 

 the book, and avoids the necessity of sending" the book up to 

 Head Office, to be copied, to the hindrance of the station work. 

 The record books should always be kept at the station, in a safe, 

 for reference. 



Station Diarv. — I find it desirable to have a diary kept at the 

 stations. This also is kept in a carbon-book, and the carbons 

 are weeklv sent into my office and filed in a self-binding cover, 

 for reference. This diary need not enter into details of 

 experiments or records, l)ut can Ije confined to (a) notes on the 

 weather, ih) Reference to sowing of experiments, by the 

 number and name of the experiment, (r) Reference to the fact 

 that notes were taken on such and such experiments (by number 

 and name), id) Notes that such and such experiments (by 

 number and name) were completed, (r) Detailed notes on the 

 general work of the station. such as ploughing. s[)raying, etc., 

 etc., bovs taken on or leaving, etc. 



This diary acts as a \-aluable check on the dates of sowing 

 and harvesting, etc., as entered in the records. 



Meteorological Notes. — The station.s also keej) the 

 meteorological records, in the form prescribed by the I )irector 

 of the Meteorological Department. 



Plot book. — It is desirable that a record book of each field, 

 block, or plot should be kept, in which a yearly record is kept 

 of the kind of crop growing during the year, the method of 

 treatment of the soil; the amount and kind of manures used, 

 etc. In after vears this book will throw valuable light on many 

 problems, which would otherwise be lost sight of. 



In it can also be entered the dates of planting of trees, 

 draining, erection of buildings, making of roads, etc. 



The station officer need therefore keep only five books for 

 his experimental work, in addition to such stock books as a 

 Government Department usually requires. These are. as 

 ah^eadv explained: (i) the experiment list, made out at 

 Head Office and kept in a self-binding cover; (2) a diary of the 

 dailv work of the station: (3) the daily meteorological records; 

 (4) the record book; (5) the plot book. The work involved in 

 keeping these five books is not too great. 



Treatment of Records at the Head Office. 



I find it undesirable to keep the station records in the order 

 in which they are received at my office. It is better to file them 

 under flie subjects to which they refer, especially when one 

 is dealing with records from six or seven stations and over a 

 thousand experimenls. 



For convenience of handlirig these records I have abandoned 

 the card index as involving too nmch unnecessary clerical work 

 in copying. A foolscap jacket with the name of the crop or 

 plant referred to is most convenient for holding these records. 



