1910.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 31. 21 



Examination of the above list makes it apparent that rela- 

 tively few of our earlier bulletins can now be furnished. The 

 publications printed by the station during the early years of its 

 existence were naturally issued in comparatively small editions. 

 The demand was limited. The growth of interest in improved 

 methods in agriculture was not fully anticipated. It is now 

 apparent that it would have been well had many of our bulletins 

 and reports, which are of a character to make their contents of 

 some permanent value, — even if only for purposes of library 

 reference, — been issued in larger numbers. Many institutions, 

 especially those devoted to agricultural education, and hundreds 

 of individuals, are now vainly seeking to complete files of sta- 

 tion publications. We cannot recall the past. Its mistakes are 

 irremediable; but we should heed its lessons. The growth of 

 interest in such matters as station reports and bulletins treat 

 will continue, and the rate of such growth w^ill be more rapid in 

 the future than in the past. It would clearly seem unwise to 

 figure our editions too close to present demand, and yet to this 

 course we seem to be compelled on account of the pressure upon 

 station funds, made greater by the last grant from the federal 

 government, — the Adams fund, — since this fund provides 

 means for increased research, while the act granting it expressly 

 stipulates that no part of the fund shall be used in meeting the 

 costs of publication of results. These costs are, therefore, an in- 

 creased burden on funds already fully utilized in meeting the 

 expenses of other lines of work. 



It may be urged that under the conditions above outlined the 

 amount of work in other lines should be decreased, but this is an 

 alternative which the demands of the times render most diffi- 

 cult, and which I believe would be decidedly imwise. We are 

 under constant pressure to undertake more experimental work 

 and in new lines. The various special agricultural interests 

 urge us to more fully recognize them. Poultrymen, asparagus 

 growers, cranberry growers, tobacco growers, hothouse men and 

 many others have their special problems, which they look to us, 

 and rightly, to help them solve. We need more funds then, 

 rather than less, for our experimental work, and hence the neces- 

 sity of a more generous provision for publication. The size 



