214 Forestry Quarterly. 



periment Station. A man is employed to do the cooking and 

 janitor work, at $60.00 a month and board. Of this amount, the 

 Service pays $40.00 per month for janitor services and cooking 

 for day laborers, while the permanent employees pay $20 per 

 month and the man's board, or the equivalent of about $40, as 

 their share of the cooking expense. The cost of food supplies, 

 dishes, cooking utensils, table linens, etc., is pro-rated among the 

 men according to the number of meals received, excepting the tem- 

 porary laborers who are charged a flat rate of 25 cents' per meal, 

 since they usually can not afford a higher rate. All moneys are 

 paid to the treasurer of the mess who is responsible for the pay- 

 ment of bills, excepting that in case of temporary day laborers 

 who can not be relied upon to pay, the amount of their meals is 

 deducted from the daily wage and the difference applied on the 

 payment of bills for supplies on government vouchers. With 

 an average force of three permanent men and two temporaries, 

 the cost to the former, including their share of the cook's salary, 

 is about $1.00 per day per man. 



Office Routine. The efficiency of the scientific staff may be 

 greatly impaired by devoting too much time to office routine. 

 The situation is generally that work of this character is not con- 

 sidered sufficient in volume to warrant employing a clerk. At 

 stations employing two or more technical men, however, the 

 usual office routine, particularly if the station has supervision 

 of District work, together with the compilation of scientific data 

 and typewriting reports, is usually sufficient to occupy the time 

 of a first-class clerk. Because of the diversity of clerical work 

 at an experiment station, it requires fully as broad training and 

 involves as much responsibility as the position of chief clerk in 

 a Forest Supervisor's office. A clerk of limited capacity and ex- 

 perience can not be employed to good advantage. Viewing the 

 situation in a broad light, it is considered more economical to 

 keep a clerk at $1,200 per year, even though he may be idle an 

 hour per day, than to have two or three higher salaried men who 

 are specially trained for scientific work spend a half or a third 

 of their time on clerical duties for which they are not fitted. 



Scientific Work. 



This is the primary and only vaild justification for the exis- 

 tence of an experiment station. Such a statement seems self- 



