November 7, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



649 



present the results of trivial or ill-con- 

 sidered research. 



The United States is still essentially an 

 agricultural country and agriculture is, in 

 its ultimate terms, applied photo-chemistry. 

 The value of our farm property is already 

 over $42,000,000,000, and each sunrise sees 

 an added increment of millions. Even 

 small advances in agricultural practise 

 bring enormous monetary returns. The 

 greatest problem before the country is that 

 of developing rural life. While our people 

 still crowd into already congested cities, 

 some are beginning to realize that Long 

 Acre Square is not a wholly satisfying sub- 

 stitute for Long Acre Farm, and to question 

 whether the winding, fern-fringed country 

 roads of Vermont may not be a better 

 national asset than the Great White Way. 



Chief, therefore, among the government 

 departments, in the volume of industrial 

 research is of course the Department of 

 Agriculture, which includes within its or- 

 ganization ten great scientific bureaus, each 

 inspired by an intense pragmatism and 

 aggressively prosecuting research in its 

 allotted field. The magnitude of these 

 operations of the department may be in- 

 ferred from the fact that it spent for print- 

 ing alone during the fiscal year just ended 

 $490,000. The activities of its army of 

 agents literally cover the earth, and its 

 annual expenditure runs to many millions. 

 The Bureau of Soils, the Bureau of Plant In- 

 dustry, the Bureau of Animal Industry and 

 the Forest Service have to do with the very 

 foundations of our national existence and 

 prosperity, and their researches have added 

 billions to the national wealth. The Bureau 

 of Chemistry, through its relation to the en- 

 forcement of the pure food law and the in- 

 spection of meats before interstate ship- 

 ment, is as ubiquitous in its influence as the 

 morning newspaper and touches the daily 

 life of the people almost as closely. The 



consumer is by no means the only one bene- 

 fited by its activities. Manufacturers are 

 protected from the unfair competition of 

 less scrupulous producers. The progress of 

 research is stimulated not only by investi- 

 gations within the bureau, but by their re- 

 action upon the manufacturers of food pro- 

 ducts who are rapidly being brought to 

 establish laboratories of their own. The 

 food work of the bureau is supplemented 

 and extended by the laboratories of the 

 state and city boards of health, of which 

 that of Massachusetts has been notable for 

 productive research. Special laboratories 

 within the bureau carry its influence and 

 investigations into other fields as in case of 

 the paper and leather laboratory. 



The office of Public Roads of the depart- 

 ment, mindful of the fact that less than ten. 

 per cent, of the total road mileage of the 

 country has ever been improved, maintains; 

 a large organization of engineers, chemists 

 and other scientists to conduct investiga- 

 tions and compile data, the ultimate pur- 

 pose of which is to secure efficiency and 

 economy in the location, construction and 

 maintenance of country roads, highways 

 and bridges. 



The research work of the Department of 

 Agriculture is greatly augmented and 

 given local application through the agency 

 of 64 state agricultural experiment sta- 

 tions established for the scientific investi- 

 gation of problems relating to agriculture. 

 These stations are supported, in part, by 

 federal grants, as from the Hatch and 

 Adams funds, and for the rest by state ap- 

 propriations. Their present income ex- 

 ceeds $3,000,000. All are well equipped; 

 one of them, California, includes within its 

 plant a superb estate of 5,400 acres with 

 buildings worth $1,000,000. 



The station work is organized upon a na- 

 tional basis but deals primarily with the 

 problems of the individual states. The effi- 



