22 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



RELATION OF SALARIES TO OTHER STATION EXPENSES. 



In planning the work of experiment stations, a common mistake is 

 to attempt work in too many different lines. This necessitates the 

 employment of a considerable number of officers on the station staff 

 and thus unduly increases the salary roll. The result is that after the 

 salaries and printing bills are paid, the remainder of the station 

 income, when divided among the different officers charged with mak- 

 ing the investigations, affords only a small sum for the general 

 expenses of each investigation. This makes it necessary to conduct 

 the individual investigations on so limited a scale that the results are 

 either entirely unsatisfactory or do not offer a safe guide for practi- 

 cal application. Those stations have had the greatest success in their 

 operations which have so limited the lines of work to their resources- 

 as to enable them to conduct investigations and then attempt in a 

 thorough way to reduce the results to a practical basis. In a number 

 of States the stations should either be given larger financial support or 

 else they should contract their operations within narrower lines. 

 Generally speaking, the relation of salaries to other expenses should 

 receive the closer attention of governing boards and general officers 

 of the station. 



LACK OF TRAINED WORKERS. 



When the experiment stations were first organized under the act of 

 Congress of 1887, there was an- insufficient number of trained inves- 

 tigators to fill the positions opened by the rapid expansion of the 

 experiment station movement in this country. As their work 

 developed, this difficulty was largely overcome, especially as tne 

 agricultural colleges gave increased attention to supplying the need 

 for trained men in the stations. But within the past year this diffi- 

 culty has again presented itself in a new form. The results of prac- 

 tical importance already attained by the Department and the stations 

 have inspired the public with such confidence in the value of agricul- 

 tural research that Congress and the State legislatures have been 

 unusually liberal to these institutions. At the same time, business 

 enterprises requiring scientific and expert knowledge and skill for 

 their most successful management have been unusually prosperous. 

 The managers of these enterprises have awakened to a much clearer 

 appreciation of the value of the services of such men as are most 

 successful workers in our institutions in agricultural education and 

 research. An increasing number of our best workers in these insti- 

 tutions have therefore received very attractive offers from the busi- 

 ness world. So many public and private positions for well-trained 

 and experienced workers in agricultural science and research have 

 been opened that in some lines the demand has outrun the supply. 



