22 



or in its purpose to make efficient the institution placed in its 

 charge. 



As evidence of the loyalty of purpose of this first station 

 board I may refer to the fact that nearly all the samples of fer- 

 tilizers analyzed by the station in the spring of 1885 were col- 

 lected in various part of the State by Prof. Balentine, Acting 

 Director of the station, and Mr. Gilbert, President of the Board 

 of Managers. Whoever has done this disagreeable work can 

 realize that these men who were connected with large affairs 

 were making a great personal sacrifice in order to promptly and 

 effectively accomplish the ends for which the station was organ- 

 ized. The spirit of economy in which this was done is shown 

 by the fact that it cost only $37.82 to collect thirty- four sam- 

 ples taken at points all the way from Presque Isle to Portland, 

 a refreshing example of economical public service which I trust 

 is not yet considered as old-fashioned in this State. 



But if the Board was small it was numerically on a par with 

 the fund which it had to expend. I suppose the Maine legis- 

 lature considered that it took long chances in turning over 

 annually to the new institution as much as five thousand dol- 

 lars, and was induced to do so, I fancy, largely by keeping to 

 to front the argument of the commercial advantages of inspect- 

 ing various commodities rather than the value of scientific in- 

 quiry. We have been slow to see that a body of well founded 

 knowledge is our most valuable agricultural asset. With so 

 small a fund you can easily understand that at first the station 

 was not a very pretentious affair either in the space it occupied 

 or in its equipment. My office, and the only office, was Room 

 No. 7 in White Hall, that first college building, well remem- 

 bered by the older students, that subsequently disappeared in 

 smoke and ashes, a fate that it would have met earlier had not 

 I one day extinguished a blaze in Prof. Hamlin's class room 

 caused by his thoughtfully depositing a wooden model close 

 behind a rampant sheet iron stove. In this office I was my own 

 stenographer, clerk, bookkeeper and editor, but how my salary 

 was divided between my several functions was never deter- 

 mined. I do remember that it did not impress me as large 

 enough for a composite salary. The station chemical laboratory 

 was a room in the east end of the college laboratory partitioned 

 oft' from the space occupied by students. In this room, what 

 time we were not in the basement wrestling with Prof. Aubert's 



