54 Transactions of the Academy of Science of St. Louis 
is also a growing appreciation on the part of administrators that 
there must be a constant search for the truth, and that sooner or 
later any practice or policy will be a failure unless based upon 
such truth and such standards as are backed by scientific and 
research endeavor. 
There is a growing realization that the lowering of standards 
of scientific or research work is not at all necessary in order for 
such work to be of value to an administrative department. There 
is also a growing realization that scientific work can best be con- 
ducted by agencies and at institutions which are equipped to 
handle it, and that much duplication can be avoided and a much 
higher standard of work accomplished where administrative de- 
partments do not attempt to establish highly developed research 
agencies. 
I- 
In Missouri the Conservation Commission has been follow- 
ing this pohcy. Since its first year the Commission has been co- 
operating in a research program with the University of Missouri 
and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There are only eleven 
such units in the country. The work is conducted at the univer- 
sity where personnal, library, laboratory, consultant and other 
facilities are available. Any problems the Commission faces in- 
volving technical phases or requiring research study are referred 
to this unit. The money expended for this work has been a good 
investment. Answers are being developed to such questions, as : 
What causes quail populations to fluctuate and how can 
we determine quail populations from year to year so as to 
permit as liberal a use as possible of surplus and yet pre- 
serve breeding stock? 
Is the cry raised in certain quarters that shipment of 
live rabbits is depleting our rabbit crop justified? 
What hope is there for restoring the wild turkey suf- 
ficiently to permit hunting 
What are requirements for deer ranges and extension 
of the range? 
Under what form of management can raccoon and other 
furbearers be restored and their value increased? 
We are convinced that wildlife restoration is intimately 
associated with the land and land use, but how and to what 
extent? Is it soil and plant food? Is it land use practice 
only ? 
These, and a number of other problems, are being given 
consideration by the research unit. At first glance this might 
