12 Drrector’s REPORT OF THE 
part from the real purpose for which it was organized. . It is 
very certain that the members of the staff cannot successfully 
carry on important investigations and experiments unless they 
can give to such work their uninterrupted attention through 
a large portion of the year, a fact that is not fully appreciated 
by those without experience in studying scientific problems. 
It cannot be truly said that popular teaching is more impor- 
tant than the discovery of facts and principles, for indeed there 
could be no teaching without knowledge and no well established 
knowledge without careful and severe inquiry. 
It needs but a glance at the progress of agriculture in the 
United States during the past twenty-five years to show that 
nothing has so powerfully promoted it as a few important dis- 
coveries. The experiment station workers who have established 
truths of general agricultural importance stand in the forefront 
of the benefactors of agriculture. So long, then, as so many 
important problems are not solved and the experiment station 
is the recognized research agency for each state, why should 
it assume the functions of the college or the school and become 
largely an agency for popular education? In this connection 
I take the liberty of referring to the remarks I made at the 
time of our twenty-fifth year celebration which are to be printed 
elsewhere. (Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report. Part III of the . 
Twenty-sixth Annual Report of this Station.) 
Requests for service of special kinds—— There come to the Station 
each year numerous requests for services of special kinds, such 
as the analysis of soil, drinking water, samples of feeds, ferti- 
lizers, seeds, milk, vinegar, mineral substances, stomachs of 
animals supposed to be poisoned, etc. Many persons evidently 
suppose that it is the rightful business of the Station to analyze 
anything that may be sent to it. These persons do not under- 
stand that to comply with these requests in an indiscriminate 
way would largely waste the funds of the Station and the time 
of its staff. The Station must necessarily hold itself pretty 
closely to activities that serve the interests of its constituents in 
a more or less general way. 
The following explanations are offered with the hope that 
they will clear up misunderstandings in several directions. 
Many requests come to us from manufactures of fertilizers — 
and feeds and dealers in the same, for analysis of the products 
they manufacture or sell. In many cases there is expressed a 
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