18 
instruments through which research in agriculture in this country was prose- 
cuted. No one conversant with the brilliant achievements of the State stations, 
ami the beneficent influence <>f these upon the economic agriculture of the coun- 
try, may doubt the effectiveness of the stations as agents in agricultural 
research. During this period the stations had a right to expect and they did 
receive much valuable aid from the U. S. Department of Agriculture, particu- 
larly through its ability, as a great department of the National Government, to 
give wide circulation to and general acquaintance with the results obtained by 
the stations. Within a few years past, however, a number of bureaus of purely 
scientific research, as related to agriculture, have arisen within the Department 
of Agriculture, and have been maintained by generous appropriations of money 
from the National Treasury. The Department has therefore entered upon — or 
at least been engaged in to a far greater extent than heretofore — a field of en- 
deavor which formerly was occupied almost exclusively by the State stations. 
This statement of facts is made by your committee in no spirit of complaint— 
certainly in no spirit of sensitiveness to rivalry. It is freely conceded that the 
agricultural research work of the Department of Agriculture is of high quality 
and value. It is as stoutly maintained that the work of the stations is at least 
equally so. But. with two agents operating in the same held, common prudence 
and regard for effectiveness dictate that care should be taken that each singly. 
or the two combined, should operate with maximum economy and for maximum 
results. Considered from the point of view of the country as a whole, and bear- 
ing in mind that the whole is but an aggregation of parts, if a particular 
research may, all things considered, be undertaken to the best advantage by a 
local station, it should be given over to the station: if by the Department, it 
should be given over to the Department. There would probably be no dispute 
of the soundness of this proposition, but there is one factor in the case which 
seriously disturbs the clearness of vision in discerning the relative suitabilities 
of the station and the Department in the premises. The Department is coin- 
parathely rich, with a readily approachable and generous Congress at its doors 
and the resources of the Federal Treasury at its back. The stations are com 
paratively poor in money, without hope, and perhaps without expectations, in 
equity, of large aid from their several States, widely scattered and far removed 
from the ear of Congressional committees. It would not be surprising, there- 
fore, if mere possession of the financial ability to do it might lead the Depart- 
ment to undertake some kinds of research work which the stations are other- 
wise better qualified to do. There is also danger perhaps that the inability of 
the stations to compete with the Department in the matter of compensation 
offered qualified and desirable men may lower the standard or impair the enthu- 
siasm of service at the stations in such manner as to disqualify the stations for 
work which otherwise, by reason of their local conditions, they should be better 
able to do than a single Department at the National Capital. In fine, it is con- 
ceivable that a rich and central agency of research might so overshadow poor 
and scattered agencies as to seriously impair their standing and efficiency. 
Your committee, therefore, commends to the serious consideration of the asso- 
ciation the whole question of the relations of the State experiment stations and 
of the Department of Agriculture to the research work in agriculture, which 
must continue and increase in this country if science is to be made contributory 
in the fullest measure to our economic agriculture. With a view to laying in 
some measure a foundation for effort on the part of the association in what 
would seem to be an appropriate direction, and in order that a proper balance 
between the two great agencies of research might be preserved, your committee 
suggested to the chairmen of the House and Senate Committees on Agriculture. 
at the last session of Congress, that it might be well for the institutions repre- 
sented in this association to be heard before these committees when the appro- 
priations to the stations and to the research bureaus of the Department of 
Agriculture were under consideration. Both gentlemen heartily approved the 
suggestion, and gave it as their opinion that an expression of the views of the 
stations would be most acceptable and helpful to the committees. Your com- 
mittee respectfully recommends that instruction be given your executive com- 
mittee to make clear to the proper Congressional committees, if hearings may 
be secured, the important part taken by the State experiment stations in the 
agricultural research work of this country, with a view to securing for the sta- 
tions some measure of equity in the appropriations made for this purpose from 
the National Treasury. 
The post of Assistant Secretary of the U. S. Department of Agriculture fell 
