SCOPE AND RESULTS OF THE NUTRITION INVESTIGATIONS 

 OF THE OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 



Not the least potent of the factors that influence the welfare of a 

 country is the rational and satisfactory nutrition of its people. Conso- 

 nant with the increasing growth and prosperity of the United States 

 and the development of education and of scientific research within its 

 territory is the fact that our Government is now promoting a system- 

 atic and comprehensive inquiry into the nutrition of man, and espe- 

 cially the food and nutrition of its own people. This inquiry is 

 authorized by Congress, aided by appropriations from the Federal 

 Treasury placed in charge of the Secretary of Agriculture, and carried 

 out in different parts of the United States. One most important fea- 

 ture is the cooperation with universities, colleges, experiment stations, 

 and philanthropic organizations, literally from Maine to California 

 and from Minnesota to Alabama. Another advantage is found in the 

 fact that while the institutions and investigators have that liberty of 

 initiative and action which is so essential for scientific research, the 

 several inquiries are so coordinated and the investigators are so aided 

 by counsel and by the collating of the results of inquiry elsewhere as to 

 make both the individual investigators and the product as a whole far 

 more useful than would otherwise be possible. Part of the fund pro- 

 vided by Congress is expended under the sole and immediate care of 

 the Department; part is distributed in various places and used, not as 

 compensation for services so much as an encouragement to research. 

 The cooperating investigators and institutions are contributors to the 

 enterprise, and the spirit of cooperation thus becomes in itself an impor- 

 tant agency for elevating the quality and increasing the quantity of 

 the work, diffusing the results, and insuring their most useful applica- 

 tion. It thus comes about that an appropriation of public money, com- 

 paratively insignificant in amount, has assumed a noteworthy signifi- 

 cance in its scientific, educational, sociological, and economic results. 



The sums voted by Congress for this especial item of nutrition 



437 



