14 A NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY. 



Secondly, there ought to be provision for the publication, 

 by the State, of all material that has assumed sufficiently com- 

 plete shape to be an actual contribution to our knowledge of 

 the various plants and animals within our borders. Not a lit- 

 tle valuable material, to the knowledge of the writer, lies 

 packed away in the laboratories of the State that should be 

 published as a part of its Natural History Survey, that with 

 the assurance of publication in creditable form would be stead- 

 ily growing, instead of remaining at a standstill. It is, I 

 think, the duty of our Academy to press this upon the atten- 

 tion of the State government until the want is supplied. 



In the third place, passing now to matters that may be 

 determined largely by individual agreement rather than by 

 State action, we may profitably aim both at greater specializa- 

 tion and more intelligent co-operation. When one has made 

 himself a thorough student in any special field it would seem 

 both courteous and expedient for all of us to recognize that 

 field as his, to send him material that falls into our hands, and 

 to co-operate with him in every way in our power. I do not 

 mean, of course, that a summer or two of amateur work con- 

 stitutes a claim to pre-empt any special group or subject, nor, 

 on the other hand, that any one should be precluded from 

 doing his utmost in any field whatever to which his choice may 

 lead him, but that we ought to recognize the necessity of a 

 division of labor, and also the fitness of looking to those who 

 for a score of years or a lifetime have carefully worked some 

 restricted field as the natural depository of material, and author- 

 ities to whom we may go for help and to whom we may gladly 

 render service in their further studies. 



Lastly, the question of organization by no means an 

 easy one is best approached by an attentive study of the 

 recent experience of other Commonwealths. If we were start- 

 ing without traditions, with the virgin soil of a new territory 

 open to us, it would, perhaps, be hardly possible to devise an 

 organization with a more comprehensive, practicable and rea- 

 sonable working basis than that of the State of Minnesota. 



