392 



Agricultural Research. 



[OCT., 



be advisory only. After consulting with his staff, the respon- 

 sibility for determining the policy and work of the station 

 should rest on the director. Each member of the staff should 

 also clearly understand that in matters relating to his own 

 work as a station officer he is to deal directly with the director. 

 It is believed that experience shows that such an organisation 

 secures the most efficient work and at the same time effectually 

 safeguards the individuality of the investigator. The regula- 

 tions of the station should of course provide for the giving of 

 suitable credit in publications and otherwise to the different 

 members of the staff for the work of investigation actually 

 performed by them respectively. 



The number of independent stations which should be 

 established in any country will naturally depend on the area 

 and political divisions of the country, as well as on the range 

 and extent of its agriculture. Each station should, however, 

 as far as practicable be given a field of labour sufficiently 

 large to enable it to be organised on a broad scale and with 

 adequate financial support. For example, in the United 

 States, the State has in most cases been the unit area for 

 which each experiment station has been established. The 

 policy has been to provide each station with an equipment 

 and staff in a considerable number of branches of agricultural 

 science and to increase this equipment and staff as fast as 

 funds for this purpose could be obtained. In this way the 

 equipment of laboratories, plant houses, and live-stock has 

 been made relatively strong and a capable force of experts 

 assembled to do whatever work is required in the interests 

 of the whole State. To provide for field work in agronomy, 

 horticulture or forestry, farms of considerable size have been 

 provided at the stations, but, in addition to these, arrange- 

 ments have been made with farmers or communities in different 

 localities for co-operative experiments or sub-stations where 

 special investigations can be conducted under the direction 

 of the station officers. When the State has made appropria- 

 tions for local experiments, sub-stations have often been 

 established under the general direction of the main station. 

 But these sub-stations have been relatively expensive to main- 

 tain and have, as a rule, been little more than demonstration 

 fields. A better plan has been to give the main station 



