ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT 



STATION— 1930 



INTRODUCTION 

 F. J. Sievers, Director 



During the past year there have been a few very significant changes in 

 the organization of the Experiment Station and also in the type of service 

 rendered. 



What was formerly known as the Market Garden Field Station, locat- 

 ed at Waltham, was organized primarily to support a type of research 

 and demonstration of special value to the trucking industry, already weH 

 established in the eastern part of the State and particularly in the vicinity 

 of Boston. Consistent with this service the M-ork was directed by the de- 

 partment of vegetable gardening of the Agricultural College. In the 

 beginning its services were largely of an extension and demonstrational 

 nature with very little emphasis on investigation or research. With the 

 demands for more specific fundamental information, research men in 

 plant pathology, entomology, genetics, and floriculture were soon added 

 to the staflf with the result that the original system of administration was 

 found not only cumbersome but no longer adequate. To correct this sit- 

 uation and to bring this unit of the Institution into closer and more 

 logical relationship with the central administration, the Board of Trustees, 

 at its June meeting, decided to change the name to the Waltham Field 

 Station and place it under the direction of the Experiment Station at 

 Amherst with R. M. Koon, Research Professor of Vegetable Gardening, 

 directly in charge. This branch Station now holds the same relationship 

 to the main Experiment Station as does the Cranberry Station at East 

 Wareham, both of which are now organized and conducted to give major 

 consideration to research. Conditions under the reorganization should be 

 very nearly ideal because an opportunity is thereby afforded for four 

 departments in the Institution, viz., botany, entomology, floriculture, and 

 olericulture, to plan and direct certain investigations at the Field Station 

 in Waltham through representatives of the respective departments who 

 are in residence there. 



The demands for increased service through the Field Station have been 

 pressing for several years, and at the last legi.slative session these took 

 a very definite form in the introduction and passage of a special bill 

 providing for a liberal increase in equipment and financial support for in- 

 vestigations in floriculture. This new work is already well under way and it 

 is hoped that the results will be of a nature to justify the faith placed 

 in the Experiment Station service by those who were responsible in 

 urging the necessary legi.slation. 



At the Cranberry Station it has been possible to give special and in- 

 creased consideration to matters influencing quality of product because 

 of very close and satisfactory cooperation with Federal agencies. There 



