Fkbeuaey 10, 1899.] 



SCIENCE. 



203 



best investigators and teachers have a won- 

 derful versatility, so that they succeed pretty 

 well in a number of different lines of work, 

 but after all there is some one direction in 

 which they excel, and one or the other 

 feature of their work is almost sure to suffer 

 if they attempt a great variety of perform- 

 ances. We must in the future leave the 

 investigators more fully to their investiga- 

 ting, the teachers to their teaching, the 

 writers of agricultural publications to their 

 writing, and the farmers' institute workers 

 to their speaking. 



Already the movement in this direction 

 has begun. In our colleges changes are be- 

 ing made by which the experiment station 

 offices are given more time for their inves- 

 tigations, and additional teachers are being 

 employed. One of our stations has recently 

 employed an officer whose chief business it 

 is to edit the station publications and pre- 

 pare popular bulletins for the farmers. At 

 another institution the superintendent of 

 farmers' institutes is a separate officer, and 

 in a few States a corps of institute workers, 

 exclusive of the college and station officers, 

 has been organized. This movement should 

 be encouraged, and the governing boards 

 should see to it that the officers of stations 

 are protected against unreasonable de- 

 mands on their time, which would take 

 them away from the planning and con- 

 ducting of thorough original investiga- 

 tions. 



We do not urge this because we wish to 

 limit the disseminatian of compiled infor- 

 mation to our farmers. We fully recog- 

 nize the importance of this, and we would 

 have the States and the National Govern- 

 ment make ample provision for compiling 

 and publishing all the information which 

 our farmers ought to have. But we would 

 insist more strongly than ever that original 

 investigations by our experiment stations 

 should be made more thorough and in- 

 creased in number, in order that the stream 



of new information may increase in purity 

 and volume with every year. 



LIBERALITY OF THE STATES. 



One of the most encouraging things con- 

 nected with the progress of our experiment 

 stations has been the disposition of the 

 State Legislatures to deal more liberally 

 with them as the importance of their 

 work has become more apparent. This 

 liberality has manifested itself in a number 

 of ways. There have been large grants of 

 money directly for experiment-station pur- 

 poses. In the erection of buildings for the 

 colleges provision has often been made for 

 increasing the facilities for experiment-sta- 

 tion work. The printing of station publi- 

 cations is regularly done in a number of 

 States at the public expense. The laws re- 

 lating to inspection of agricultural com- 

 modities have been so framed that a con- 

 siderable revenue has accrued to the sta- 

 tions for purposes of investigation. The 

 increased means thus acquired have en- 

 abled the stations in a number of States to 

 push their work far beyond what could 

 have been accomplished with the Hatch 

 fund alone. In comparing the work of dif- 

 ferent stations this factor should always be 

 taken into account, and communities in 

 which a more narrow policy has been pur- 

 sued must not expect that their stations 

 will be able to do as much for their agricul- 

 ture as is accomplished by stations receiv- 

 ing more liberal treatment. 



We believe that under our American sys- 

 tem nothing can be more promotive of the 

 highest interests of the stations than that 

 the States should take a just pride in 

 strengthening and developing their opera- 

 tions, and thus prove to the world that 

 scientific institutions based upon the sup- 

 port of the people can be made as strong and 

 efficient as those which are directly main- 

 tained under the centralized authority of 

 the General Government. 



