New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 13 
investigation. A. bulletin of one hundred pages, which is merely 
a compilation of existing knowledge, may be begun and finished 
within the limits of a few weeks, whereas the data derived from 
one or more years of laborious observation may be summarized 
for public use on ten pages. 
Two facts are likely to restrict the literature emanating from 
this Station to a less quantity than may seem to some to be con- 
sistent with its equipment. 
(1) It is deemed to be a proper policy on the part of the Sta- 
tion to issue comparatively few bulletins of compilation of a 
purely informational character. More or less discussion of ex- 
isting knowledge is necessary in order to give to the results of 
research a proper setting and illumination, but it is certainly 
not the function of the Station, now that its existence and pur- 
poses are well understood, to engage in the work of popular in- 
struction. To do this would be to encroach upon the province 
of the school and of current literature. It might seem justifiable 
for this Station to digest and summarize for the use of New York 
farmers the knowledge gained by the stations in other states, 
were it not for the fact that the U. S. Department of Agricul 
ture is doing this admirably through the Office of Experiment 
Stations. It is conceded that when emergencies arise or when an 
entirely new situation faces the agricultural public, like the sud- 
den inroad of devastating insects or the establishment of the 
sugar beet industry, farmers are justified in looking to the Sta- © 
tion for information of a general character. This is a different 
matter, however, from writing general treatises on a great vari- 
ety of subjects. This institution, in my judgment, will do well 
to restrict its efforts quite closely to the work of experimental 
research. 
(2) It has become imperative that this Station attack some of 
the more difficult scientific problems relating to agriculture. 
Many of the “ easy questions ” have been asked and answered and 
for this reason, and also because the “hard answers” are the 
