518 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1085 



to another that special degrees of activity 

 are to be observed. Such, for example, are 

 the electrical phenomena seen in the oxida- 

 tion o.f phosphorus or benzaldehyde, and it 

 appears that, in the photo-chemical system 

 of the green plant, radiant energy is caught 

 on the way, as it were, to its degradation to 

 heat, and utilized for chemical work. In a 

 somewhat similar way, it might be said that 

 money in the process of transfer is more 

 readily diverted, although perhaps not al- 

 ways to such good purpose as in the chloro- 

 plast. Again, just as in commerce money 

 that is unemployed is of no value, so it is 

 in physiology. Life is incessant change or 

 transfer of energy, and a system in statical 

 equilibrium is dead. 



W. M. Batliss 

 University College, 

 London 



THE PUBLICATION OF THE SESULTS OF 

 INVESTIGATIONS MADE IN EXPEBI- 

 MENT STATIONS IN TECHNICAL 

 SCIENTIFIC JOUBNALS^ 

 In order to gain a proper perspective for a 

 consideration of the topic which has been 

 assigned the final place in this discussion of 

 experiment station publications, namely, the 

 publication of results in scientific journals, in- 

 cluding the Journal of Agricultural Research, 

 it will be necessary to consider very briefly 

 certain historical aspects of the question. 

 Until within the last few years it has been a 

 well-nigh universal practise of the experiment 

 stations in this country to publish all, or very 

 nearly all, of the material which they have had 

 for publication in the form of bulletins. The 

 reason for this practise, which has always 

 seemed anomalous to scientific workers in other 



1 From the Maine Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

 tion. This paper formed a part of a symposium 

 on the various forms of station publication at the 

 California meeting of the Association of American 

 Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations in 

 the Station Section. The paper was read by Di- 

 rector Charles D. Woods, in the absence of the 

 author. 



than agricultural fields, is of course found in 

 the historical beginnings of station work and 

 station publication in America. 



Section 1 of the Hatch Act provides " That 

 in order to aid in acquiring and diffusing 

 among the people of the United States useful 

 and practical information on subjects con- 

 nected with agriculture, and to promote scien- 

 tific investigation of agricultural science," 

 experiment stations were to be established. 

 Further on Section 4 provided " That bulletins 

 or reports of progress shall be published " as 

 often as once in three months, and these dis- 

 tributed to farmers and newspapers. 



Now the idea plainly embodied in all this 

 was that the station should issue bulletins in 

 order that the farmers might be informed of 

 the nature and results of its activities. This 

 entirely laudable idea worked well enough at 

 first. Very presently, however, as the char- 

 acter and quality of the station work changed 

 and the stations began in some measure to 

 fulfil the second purpose for which they were 

 organized, namely, to contribute to agricultural 

 knowledge by investigation, it came about that 

 bulletins were sometimes issued which, from 

 the very nature of the case, left the farmer, 

 who had the temerity to tackle reading them, 

 on the whole rather worse informed when he 

 had finished than he was before he began. 

 Something of this sort was bound to be the 

 case as soon as experiment station work was of 

 anything but the most superficial character. 

 Just as soon as there began to be issued in 

 bulletin form really scientific papers, of a 

 technical character, it became evident that the 

 publishing activity of a station must perform 

 two separate and distinct functions, and not 

 merely a single one as was evidently contem- 

 plated by those who prepared the Hatch Act. 



These two functions are: (1) To inform the 

 general public of the activity of the station, 

 with reference to such matters as it (the pub- 

 lic) is actually interested in from the view- 

 point of practical farming. In other words, 

 one function of station publication is, in the lan- 

 guage of the original act, to diffuse among the 

 people useful and practical information. (2) 

 The second function of station publication is 



