85 
Experiment Station Record. 
The resolution on this subject offered by C. E. Thorne, of Ohio (p. 62), was 
reported by the executive committee in the following modified form and recom- 
mended for adoption: 
Resolved, That we respectfully request the Director of the Office of Experiment 
Stations to include in the Experiment Station Record not only the titles, but more 
generally brief abstracts of the publications of foreign agricultural experiment sta- 
tions and kindred institutions, and that the executive committee be instructed "to 
present the matter to the Department of Agriculture and give such aid as may be 
appropriate to secure the object of this resolution." 
A. C. True. If I may be allowed a brief statement by way of explanation of this 
matter, I would say that, in the Experiment Station Record as at present made up 
there is a very large element of foreign literature. The point really under considera- 
tion is the extension of that element, especially in the direction of making the 
abstracts longer, more definite and elaborate. Now, this seems to me on the whole 
desirable, provided it can be done in a proper w r ay. The effort of the Office now is 
to utilize its present force and resources very fully in its different lines of work; and 
so far as the Experiment Station Record is concerned, a special effort has been made 
to bring that review up to date and to make it comprehensive. We are now trying 
to cover in a general way all the literature of agricultural science and to bring our 
review to the attention of our readers as promptly as possible. 
When we consider that in addition to the station publications and the Department 
publications, and the fugitive publications of various kinds irregularly issued, more 
than a thousand periodicals are regularly received by the Department of Agriculture 
w T hich must be examined by the editors of the Experiment Station Record, and that 
about two-thirds of these publications are in foreign languages, an idea may be 
gained of the magnitude of the task which we have on our hands in the preparation 
of this journal. 
Now, we desire to do very fully w T hat this association and the institutions repre- 
sented here desire that we shall do in this matter; but we feel also very strongly that 
we can not do any more than we are doing at present with the means at our disposal 
and the force which we are able to employ. 
C. E. Thorne, of Ohio. I wish it to be distinctly understood that my resolution is 
in no sense a criticism, but just the opposite. It is because I have found the Record, 
so far as it goes, so very valuable to me in my work that I want more of so good a 
thing; and it is because I have realized in my administration of the finances of the 
Ohio Station that, when a work is blocked out on a certain scale, it is impossible to 
extend that w r ork without additional appropriations that I inserted a clause in the 
resolution requesting the executive committee to take such action as might be 
necessary to assist in getting the additional appropriations. 
I realize that the additional work contemplated by this resolution is a very large 
element. It means the employment of several additional assistant editors for the 
editorial corps of the Record; and these must be experts in a number of these foreign 
languages. But there is work being done in these foreign countries and published 
in foreign languages of which we can not afford to be ignorant. We all recognize 
the admirable work which the Office of Experiment Stations has done. This publi- 
cation, the Experiment Station Record, w r ould abundantly justify, without anything 
else, all that has been given this Office from the United States Treasury. It is 
because of the admirable way in which the work of that Office has been done, the 
abundant facilities that it has for the extension of this work — facilities which can 
not be duplicated anywhere else — that I felt, if we could heartily stand behind the 
Office and support it in its w T ork and ask it to go still further, it would be a very 
great thing for the whole work here in America. 
The resolution was adopted. 
