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gas machine, the director and his staff of one or two men were 

 fellow workers in whatever chemical analyses were performed. 

 Surely it was a day of small beginnings when we all served in 

 any capacity that the furtherance of our work demanded, 

 whether with the workman's tool or with the crucible and 

 balance. 



But the station under its original form of organization had a 

 brief life of less than three years," for on October i. 1887, it 

 passed out of existence and early in 1888 was reorganized on 

 a broader and more liberal basis as a department of the Maine 

 State College. During this preliminry period we had a dimin- 

 utive staff and limited resources. Because the station came 

 into existence during the adolescent period of station develop- 

 ment in this country, and with a staff handicapped by both phy- 

 sical and official adolescence, it would be too much to say that 

 our efforts produced a marked effect in Maine agriculture, but 

 we worked earnestly and followed the best light we had. In 

 the first two years, we published three very modest reports and 

 twenty still more unpretentious newspaper bulletins. A few 

 days ago I explored my library and found copies of these docu- 

 ments, some of which I have brought to show you. I shall not 

 forget the remark made by the President of the Board at the 

 close of its final meeting. As we rose to leave the room, Mr. 

 Gilbert said, "We have the satisfaction of knowing that we have 

 expended every dollar of the State's money honestly and for the 

 purposes for which it was appropriated." 



In March, 1887, a long hoped for event occurred which was 

 the passage by Congress of the Hatch Act, appropriating an- 

 nually $15,000 of federal money to each state and territory for 

 tlie purpose of maintaining an agricultural experiment station. 

 I do not know how other station directors were affected, but I 

 was exultant, boisterously so. I saw ahead days of peace and 

 plenty, devoid of the annual period of anxiety when a new and 

 often skeptical legislature must be labored with to secure the 

 continuance of a necessary maintenance appropriation. The 

 stability of the federal aid to state stations, without effort on 

 llic ]\irt of individual institutions, is a proper cause for devout 

 thankfulness. It is most irrational, indeed it is most unfor- 

 tunate, when the head of a state educational or scientific insti- 

 tution, because of a periodical legislative campaign, is com- 

 pelled to endure great anxiety and a drain upon his energies 



