432 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 376. 



ilar areas impresses no one as useless, so long 

 as it is known that one is in Wyoming and 

 the other in Colorado. 



This fundamental error involved in the es- 

 tablishing of one of the United States experi- 

 ment stations in each state, regardless of the 

 facts of climate, soil or physiographic aspect, 

 which may make a unit of several states for 

 the purposes of agricultural experiment or 

 may subdivide one state into several wholly 

 distinct areas so far as plant life is concerned, 

 must necessarily be responsible for a lesser 

 efficiency to the country in proportion to the 

 number of stations established than would 

 exist if locations had been settled upon by a 

 committee of scientific experts, without any 

 regard whatever to state boundaries. 



In other words, the quasi-dual nature of the 

 experiment stations, receiving as they do their 

 support from the Federal Government while 

 their allotment is to the states as such, to 

 which are also left the direction and control 

 of the experimental work, together with the 

 appointment of their staffs, results in a re- 

 grettable lack of coordinated and economically 

 directed work. It would seem that experi- 

 ments in agriculture in the various agricul- 

 tural areas of the countrj' would be conducted 

 to much better advantage, if all the oiDera- 

 tions of the Federal experiment stations were 

 planned, directed and controlled directly by 

 the Department of Agriculture at Washing- 

 ton. This, in fact, is the only way in which 

 the faults of indirection and of duplication 

 of work could well be avoided. Under the 

 control of the Federal Government, the prob- 

 lems of each agricultural area could be as- 

 signed to such stations as were best fitted to 

 deal with them, instead of their ener- 

 gies being distributed vaguely over a variety of 

 subjects, more or less intermittently and at 

 haphazard, as local influences or the curiosity 

 of the individual investigators dictate. 



One of the great difficulties with experiment 

 station workers at present is the isolation in 

 which they labor, and the limitations of their 

 outlook upon agricultural problems in gener- 

 al, due to the intense localization of their 

 work and thought. This cannot well be other- 

 wise, as lack of funds precludes them from 



the travel necessary to gain a knowledge of 

 the work of other experiment stations, and 

 the conditions of other agricultural regions. 



If the experiment station staffs were filled 

 by civil service appointment from Washing- 

 ton, and a system of transfers from station 

 to station and back to Washington were made 

 possible, it would seem that the resultant in- 

 creased breadth of view, and more compre- 

 hensive grasp of the problems of scientific 

 agriculture would inure greatly to the benefit 

 of the whole country. By such a system of 

 transfers the right man to attack any given 

 problem could be detailed, at any time, to 

 any experiment station in the United States, 

 while by a civil service system of appoint- 

 ments a constantly higher standard of effi- 

 ciency than now prevails could be insured 

 everywhere. 



At the present time a tendency seems to 

 exist, if one station makes a reputation for 

 itself in any one line of experiment, for others 

 in the neighborhood to be stimulated to emu- 

 late, and if possible to excel, its efforts, due to 

 the influence of state pride or rivalry. A 

 duplication of work here occurs which is often 

 wasteful and useless. 



Under a Federal system of control a given 

 problem might oftentimes be divided and as- 

 signed in part to three or four stations work- 

 ing coordinately. The advantage of such an 

 assignment in the case of many experiments 

 is sufficiently obvious. 



One of the difficulties in the way of the 

 highest efficiency on the part of experiment 

 station workers lies in the association of the 

 experiment stations with the state education- 

 al institutions, and the combination of the 

 duties of a teacher in one of these with those 

 of an investigator in the experiment station. 

 As a matter of fact, the work of the teacher 

 and the investigator cannot be wholly di- 

 vorced, but oftentimes by far the greater part 

 of the time of the experiment station men is 

 swallowed up in the details of college duties, 

 to the serious detriment, of course, of the work 

 of the station. The absolute separation of the 

 federal station workers and the state agricul- 

 tural college workers, so far as their duties 

 are concerned, need not prevent the chemist 



