236 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



responsibility of the board to administer the funds granted by Congress in accord- 

 ance with the provisions of said act. 



The wisdom of Congress in limiting the number of stations to be established in 

 each State and Territory under the aforesaid act has been clearly shown by the 

 experience of the few States and Territories which have attempted the maintenance 

 of substations with the funds granted under said act. The expense of maintaining 

 substations has as a rule materially weakened the central station, and the investi- 

 gations carried on at the substations have been superficial and temporary. It is 

 granted that in many States and Territories more than one agriculturial experiment 

 station might do useful work, and in some States more than one station has already 

 been successfully maintained; but in all these cases the State has given funds from 

 its own treasury to supplement those given by Congress. It is also granted that 

 experiment stations established under said act of Congress and having no other 

 funds than those provided by that act will often need to carry on investigations in 

 different localities in their respective States and Territories, but it is held that this 

 should be done in such a way as will secure the thorough supervision of such inves- 

 tigations by the expert officers of the station and that arrangement for such experi- 

 mental inquiries should not be of so permanent a character as to prevent the station 

 from shifting its work from place to place as circumstances may require, nor involve 

 the expenditure of funds in such amounts and in such ways as will weaken the work 

 of the station as a whole. 



As far as practicable, the cooperation of individuals and communities benefited by 

 these special investigations should be sought, and if necessary the aid of the States 

 invoked to carry on enterprises too great to be successfully conducted within the 

 limits of the appropriation granted by Congress under the act aforesaid. 



PURCHASE OR RENTAL OF LANDS FOR AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



This Department holds that the purchase or rental of lands by the experiment 

 stations from the funds appropriated in accordance with the provisions of the act 

 of Congress of March 2, 1887, is conrrary to the spirit and intent of said act. The 

 act provides for "paying the necessary expenses of conducting investigations and 

 experiments and printing and distributing the results. * * * Provided, however, 

 That out of the first annual appropriation so received by any station an amount not 

 exceeding one-fifth may be expended in the erection, enlargement, or repair of a 

 building or buildings necessary for carrying on the work of such stations; and there- 

 after an amount not exceeding 5 per centum of such annual appropriation may be 

 so expended." The only reference to land for the station in the act is in section 8, 

 where State legislatures are authorized to apply appropriations made under said act 

 to separate agricultural colleges or schools established by the State "which shall 

 have connected therewith an experimental farm or station." The strict limitation 

 of the amount provided for buildings and the absence of any provision for the pur- 

 chase or rental of lands, when taken in connection with the statement in the eighth 

 section, which treats the farm as in a sense a necessary adjunct of the educational 

 institution to which the whole or a part of the funds appropriated in accordance 

 with said act might in certain cases be devoted, point to the conclusion that it was 

 expected that the institution of which the station is a department would supply the 

 land needed for experimental purposes and that charges for the purchase or rental 

 of lands would not be made against the funds provided by Congress for the experi- 

 ment station. This conclusion is reenforced by considerations of a wise and economic 

 policy in the management of agricultural experiment stations, especially as relating 

 to cases in which it might be desirable for the station to have land for experimental 

 purposes in different localities. The investigations carried on by the stations in 

 such cases being for the direct benefit of agriculture in the localities where the work 

 is done, it seems only reasonable that persons or communities whose interests will 

 be advanced by the station work should contribute the use of the small tracts of land 





