'4 



International Agricultural Institute. 



All these extracts and summaries are from now onwards 

 to be classified according to the rules of the International 

 Institute at Brussels, and preserved in our card catalogues. 

 Bibliographical cards are made out for the titles of the less 

 important articles which may usefully be noted. In order 

 to arrange the classification on the best basis, Mr. Otlet, the 

 extremely competent Secretary-General of the International 

 Bibliographical and Documentary Institute at Brussels, was 

 kind enough to come to Rome at our request. He studied 

 our organisation, and gave us some valuable advice, so that 

 our recording system and our bibliographical bulletin since 

 the commencement of the present year conform in all respects 

 to the rules of the International Bibliographical Institute. 

 Our bulletin can be cut up into slips, which can be used 

 for everv library kept according to the international method, 

 and we have commenced the regular exchange of biblio- 

 graphical cards with the Brussels Institute. We are thus 

 accumulating veritable treasures of bibliographical docu- 

 mentation on all branches of agriculture ; in a few years they 

 will be of the greatest value. 



The Staff. 



The most urgent matter was to complete our staff, and 

 then to put them to work in all the branches of the Institute. 

 Public opinion, it must be confessed, which saw at the outset 

 none of the advantages which had been promised, began to 

 lose confidence in the utility of the Institute. It had to be 

 proved that the Institute was working and rendering valuable 

 services. 



Before the serious work had begun, it was impossible to 

 submit the staff selected to a decisive test, and since one of 

 the regulations, which was very necessary for an international 

 institute, prescribed that the staff should be international, it 

 was easy in this preparatory period to ask the subsidiary 

 question, " Where does he come from ? " rather than the main 

 question, "What is he worth?" After the departure of the 

 three chiefs referred to above, there remained a numerous 

 enough staff in the Bureau of Statistics, although they were 



