31 
.Ml i HODS "l Si i D Tl 8 I I NO. 
E. 11. Jenkins, chairman of tbe standing committee on seed testing, submitted 
the follow Ing repoi t : 
since the last meeting of the association the committee has submitted its 
L*evisiou of ibe rules for seed testing to a number of those Interested la the work 
for further suggestions, and the Qua! revision of the worli has been printed 
and distributed by the Office of Experiment stations as Circular No. .";i. revised, 
i»i>. 24, with the title — Rules and Apparatus for Seed Testing. It is the hope 
of the committee that the aiethods prescribed will commend themselves to those 
who arc engaged in seed testing and he adopted by them. 
The committee will gratefully receive any criticism of the methods or sugges- 
tions for their improvement. 
All of which is respectfully submitted. 
i'.. II. Jenkins, <'h<ii> man. 
V. \v. Cabd. 
\Y. It. Lazenby. 
E. Bbown. 
A. D. Sua mel. 
The report was accepted. 
Military Instruction. 
The following report was received from the chairman of the committee on 
this subject through the chairman of the executive committee: 
Several matters of special interest to all the institutions were referred to 
this committee by the convention at its last annual meeting, but as they 
appear upon the printed programme it is unnecessary to repeat them here. They 
involve matters of the very highest importance to all the colleges in the asso 
Ciation, and I may he permitted at the outset to express my deep regret that I 
am compelled to make only a brief and incomplete report. During all the early 
part of the year the condition of my health was such as to keep me under a 
physician's care for several months; during which time I was able to perform 
only a small part of my own regular duties, and the only outside matters to 
which I gave the slightest attention were in connection with meetings of the 
executive committee of this association. This word of explanation is due to 
my associates as well as to myself, and I hope the personal allusion may he 
pardoned. In any case, it is difficult to secure meetings of a committee the 
members of which are so widely scattered, and especially when those meetings, 
in order to he productive of permanent results, must he made to coincide with 
the convenience of officials in one of the great departments of the Government. 
Such a meeting, in order to avoid waste of time, should have before it some 
definitely considered body of proposals which had been previously submitted 
to all the members and which might thus form the basis of definite action to be 
proposed to the department concerned. Owing to my inability to give sufficient 
consideration to the important questions involved to justify me in trying to 
formulate such proposals for the committee no meeting has been called during 
the year, hut I beg to suggest that even this, unfortunate as it seems, may not 
be altogether without its advantages. 
The attention of all the colleges has been necessarily fixed to a greater or less 
extent upon the working of the system which the War Department is now try- 
in- to carry out. and all are probably in a better position to make an estimate 
of its advantages and disadvantages than they were a year ago. Considerable 
correspondence has been carried on with different institutions relative to special 
cases as they arose, and a number of important suggestions have been made bj 
them, some of which may form the basis of future deliberation and action. To 
President Fellows, of Maine, special thanks are due for the valuable work that 
he has done in this connection. 
The chairman of the committee has had two prolonged interviews with the 
Chief of Staff of the Army, the first of which resulted in an extension of the 
detail of military officers to colleges from two years to three, and the second in 
a better mutual understanding of some of the points at issue between the col- 
leges and the Department. The position of the Department, stated in the 
briefest form, is this. that, since the Government furnishes officers and equip- 
ment for giving military instruction, it has a right to expect both a hearty 
23880— No. 153—05 m 3 
