390 



Agricultural Research. 



[OCT., 



tion, and its function should be to benefit agriculture for the 

 sake of the general welfare of the community and not merely 

 for the advancement of the interests of the farmers as a class. 

 For this reason it seems appropriate that the stations should 

 be public institutions and derive their financial support from 

 the general government, at least to a large extent. However, 

 since the individual station works especially in the interests 

 of agriculture in a restricted region, there is no reason why 

 local communities should not have a share in its management 

 and contribute to its support, or that it should not receive 

 financial and other assistance from private sources. As a 

 rule, to secure impartial and effective work the station must 

 be under public control. The way in which this public control 

 should be exercised and the methods by which public funds 

 are to be raised and distributed for the use of the stations 

 will naturally and appropriately conform to the govern- 

 mental system existing in any country. For it is highly 

 important that the agricultural institutions of a country 

 should be a component part of the governmental system and 

 should be infused with the spirit of the people under whom 

 they are established. For agriculture cannot afford to be 

 considered as a thing apart from the commerce, manufacturing* 

 and social life of the State. Its interests are indissolubly 

 interwoven with those of all other departments of human 

 activity and should be promoted in accordance with the prin- 

 ciples on which the State is promoting all other lines affecting the 

 welfare of the people. In the United States, for example, 

 it has seemed most appropriate that the agricultural experi- 

 ment stations should be established primarily under the 

 control of the States. The Federal government, representing 

 agriculture in its interstate and foreign relations, has therefore 

 confined itself to subsidizing the State stations and exercising 

 over them only such control as is necessary to secure the 

 proper use of the Federal funds granted them. Beyond this, 

 the Office of Experiment Stations in the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture gathers the information obtained 

 by the several stations and makes it available to the whole 

 country and foreign nations, and also advises with and aids 

 the State stations in various ways. In addition to the Federal 

 funds, the State stations receive financial support from State 



