38 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



methods of teaching' agriculture. Attention was called to the publica- 

 tion by the Department of Agriculture of the syllabi of courses in 

 agrotechny, rural engineering, and rural economics prepared by the 

 committee last year. In surveying the progress of agricultural edu- 

 cation in this country during recent years, the committee "found 

 abundant evidence that the attitude of this association and the work of 

 this committee as its representative have already borne good fruit in 

 stimulating and aiding the movement for the specialization of agricul- 

 tural instruction in our colleges, the strengthening of agricultural fac- 

 ulties, and the bettering of the material equipment for agricultural 

 education." The committee announced its intention to prepare and 

 publish during the coming year a report on the courses in agronomy 

 in our agricultural colleges and the facilities for instruction in this 

 subject. 



The committee on cooperative work between the stations and the 

 Department of Agriculture made the following recommendations as 

 supplementary to those embodied in the report submitted at the last 

 convention: "(1) When cooperation is desired by the station, it is 

 deemed advisable that the proposal for such cooperation be made to 

 the Department by the director of the experiment station. Where, on 

 the other hand, the Department desires the cooperation of the station, 

 it is deemed advisable that the proposal be made in the first instance 

 to the director rather than to members of the staff. (2) While it is 

 well understood that no financial obligations can be undertaken beyond 

 the end of the fiscal year, yet it^should be recognized that any arrange- 

 ment for joint experimentation which requires some years to complete 

 creates a moral obligation upon both parties to carry the work to a 

 conclusion. (3) Where a line of investigation has been in progress in 

 any State under the auspices of either institution, it is, as a rule, unwise 

 for the other party to undertake independently the same line of inves- 

 tigation, at least until after full consultation upon the subject." 



The committee was continued with the addition of Prof. B. T. Gal- 

 loway, of the Department of Agriculture. 



The report of the committee on indexing agricultural literature 

 called attention to the fact that progress in this direction could not be 

 made by the Department of Agriculture until its library was provided 

 with funds for this purpose. A paper on agricultural college libraries, 

 prepared and presented by Miss Josephine A. Clark, librarian of the 

 Department of Agriculture, and a member of this committee, com- 

 pleted the report. This paper emphasized the great importance of 

 libraries as aids to the work of investigation and instruction and 

 pointed out the necessity of systematic arrangement and complete 

 cataloguing of agricultural libraries. Arrangements in progress by 

 the library of the Department of Agriculture for assisting agricultural 

 colleges in classifying and cataloguing their libraries were explained. 



