April 15, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



357 



pressed that more fundamental considerations 

 are being overlooked. The words of Edwin 

 T. Meredith, former Secretary of Agriculture, 

 may, then, serve as a timely warning. In a 

 statement published under the title " My Tear 

 in the Department," in the Country Gentle- 

 man for February 26, 1921, he points out as 

 requisite for the successful prosecution of re- 

 search in a large organization these funda- 

 mentals: Securing the right kind of men; 

 providing them with adequate appropriations 

 for research; freeing them from irksome re- 

 strictions in the expenditure of those funds; 

 and providing for adequate publication of 

 their results. That Mr. Meredith speaks 

 with full appreciation of the importance of 

 research, is shown by his administration and 

 by its straightforward statement in the same 

 article. 



Eesearch is the foundation of agricultural prog- 

 ress. "Without it most of our agricultural activi- 

 ties could not exist. Our most important methods 

 are based on the results of years of patient in- 

 vestigation. There is no real progress without 

 scientific study applied to everyday problems. So 

 much had been accomplished through research that 

 many people may fall into the error of thinking 

 that not much m'ore work of this character is 

 needed and that the requirements of the day relate 

 merely to the application of knowledge already in 

 hand. Research is more essential now than ever 

 before, and the need does not relate wholly to 

 taking care of the future. We are confronted to- 

 day with serious problems of the most pressing 

 nature, about which we know very little. . . . 



Without minimizing in any degree any of the 

 activities of the department or the other sugges- 

 tions that have been made for strengthening cer 

 tain features of the work, I place particular em 

 phasis at this tune on the importance of personnel 

 the value of research and the need of the most 

 intensive study possible of marketing problems, 



I plax^ the problem of personnel first. It is the 

 corner stone, you might say, of the whole struc 

 ture. To secure the right kind of men the de 

 partment must be able to pay higher salaries, and 

 it must be free from some of the limitations which 

 are now imposed on the expenditure of its appro- 

 priations. I am not decrying legal safeguards, 

 which always must be imposed on the expenditure 

 of public money, but I do deplore unnecessary re- 



strictions which result in subordinating good 

 judgment and business-like management to rou- 

 tine and fiscal control. 



Appropriations for research are the equipment 

 of the worker, and unless he is properly equipped 

 he can not be expected to get results. And in this 

 connection I regard, as a part of his equipment, 

 funds for publishing the results of his work. 

 Nothing is more discouraging to a scientific worker 

 than to be denied the right to publish the facts 

 he has learned after years of patient investigation. 



So much has been written recently of the 

 alleged inefficiency of government workers 

 that it is inspiring to hear, from an executive 

 officer on the eve of his retirement, a quite 

 different statement. 



The work of the department, taking it all the 

 way through, is done by as earnest and as able a 

 lot of men and women as any with whom I have 

 ever come in contact. On the whole, they work as 

 many hours a day and as efficiently, I believe, as 

 employees in most private establishments, and 

 they are paid less. Large nrraibers of them are 

 held to their work by their love for it. Many 

 formerly with the department were offered so 

 much more money in private employment that, in 

 justice to themselves and their families, they could 

 not refuse to go. 



In a single year 8,000 of these workers left the 

 department. Those who left last year received 

 from private concerns and other institutions an 

 average increase in salary of more than 50 per 

 cent.; and there are instances of increases running 

 as high as 500 per cent. If the men and women 

 in the department were not efficient private in- 

 dustry would not be offering them such increases 

 in salary. Those remaining are as efiicient as 

 those who have gone, and many of them have de- 

 clined just as tempting offers. They have said in 

 spite of low salaries and high living costs they are 

 going to stay where they render the greatest serv- 

 ice to the nation. 



SCIENTIFIC LEGISLATION 



The Journal of the Washington Academy 

 of Sciences notes the following matters of 

 scientific interest in the third session of the 

 Sixty-sixth Congress convened on December 

 6, 1920: 



Under a special rule adopted on December 

 14, the joint resolution (S.J. 191) to create a 



