COMMITEEE OF INVESTIGATION 



55 



HOW CAN THE STATIONS FURTHER SERVE US? 



Next comes the inquiry: "What more can the stations do for 

 us?" Let us see first what are the proper functions of the stations. 

 Their legitimate business, surely, is not the promulgation or dif- 

 fusion of information already available to the general public. The 

 Washington Department and the stations have frequently published 

 treatises on the culture of garden crops, something on the line of 

 our general garden books, or of treatises on special vegetable crops, 

 already in the book trade. It is not their business to compete in this 

 way with publishers, nor can it be their true function to write indi- 

 vidual letters answering questions that the inquirer can have answered 

 by looking up the ordinary garden books himself. The station was 

 not established to save its constituents the fifty cents, or the dollar 

 that it would cost him to buy one of the books on general gardening 

 or special garden crops. 



Investigation and research work is the real business for which 

 the stations were established. Their true function is to help find 

 a solution for the many problems as they come up in the farming 

 business, and there are a good many problems the solution of which 

 would be very desirable, or becomes necessary, and new additions 

 from day to day. 



A number of the members of this organization have kindly re- 

 sponded to my request for suggestions as to the work along our lines 

 which they would like the stations to take up. Some of the sug- 

 gestions received make reference to best methods of cultivation of 

 our leading garden vegetables, best manures or fertilizers for them, 

 variety tests, best varieties for market, etc. 



I have already pointed out the fact that the station is not the 

 proper place to look for information on old, established lines. Its 

 function is not to educate, agriculturally, the individual, but to 

 bring out new facts, new information, new cultural methods, the 

 solution of new or old and still unsolved problems, and making this 

 new know^ledge available for the general public. 



Variety tests, and in some measure fertilizer experiments, at the 

 stations are probably of doubtful value for the general public unless 

 made in co-operation with a large number of growers scattered over a 

 wide range, and under different soil and other local conditions. 



Where the stations can be of great help to us is in the discovery 

 and improvement of means for the control of our insect, fungus, and 



