aware that a vigorous cultivation of public sentiment, as fundamental 

 to legislative sentiment, has been going on as the only means of main- 

 taining and increasing the financial support of these institutions, on 

 whose part there has existed an expectancy of legislative aid, with a 

 consequent watchfulness of public opinion and legislative good will. 



Some of the results of the conditions that have heen pointed out 

 are intimately related to the progress and past efficiency of agricultural 

 research in the United States and their discussion is pertinent to sug- 

 gestions that are to follow. 



I. The development of research effort has not been symmetrical 

 and logical. Adequately trained men have not been provided in 

 sufficient numbers to expend in the way of capable investigation the 

 entire amounts of national and state appropriations that have been 

 applied to agricultural research . This is one of the reasons why the more 

 difficult agricultural problems have so largely remained untouched. 



As to this matter we may quote from a personal letter of a well 

 known investigator: 



"The demand for agricultural research has been greater than the 

 supply of men capable of carrying on research or educational work. 

 The Agricultural Colleges and the agencies of research have been 

 created by law, but the law cannot create men. The Agricultural 

 Colleges have developed a considerable proportion of under trained 

 men without poise or sustained judgment and under these conditions 

 the personal element enters into the work of the state and national 

 institutions and in the majority of cases most of the difficulties arising 

 in the field may be traced to the personal equation of' inadequate 

 men." 



It is here that the standards of education have a direct and im- 

 mediate relation to the quality of research effort. In those colleges of 

 agriculture in which high educational standards are maintained, the 

 various forms of agricultural research are in general of high character, 

 corresponding to the more elevated character of the academic adminis- 

 tration. A debasement of educational ideals reacts with certainty 

 upon the work of scientific inquiry. In these matters, college authori- 

 ties are sometimes helpless in the face of uninformed popular opinion 

 which rates the value of an institution by the number of names in its 

 catalogue. 



(2) Many persons nominally holding research positions have been 

 investigators only in name, for their time and energy have been 

 absorbed by other duties. In many institutions members of the 

 faculty have combined routine teaching with experiment station 

 duties, a policy due in part, at least, to the scarcity of specifically 

 trained men. The disadvantages pertaining to this policy have 



