On the question of publication of the results of our labors it is
perhaps premature to dwell at length. Each of the experiment stations
is publishing its own bulletins and reports quite independently of the
others, but after a uniform plan recommended by the association with
which we meet here; and with but one exception that has come to my
notice, another important recommendation of the same association--that
these publications shall be void of all personal matter--has been kept
in mind. The National Bureau of Experiment Stations at Washington is
doing what it can with the means at command to further the general
work by issuing the Experiment Station Record, devoted chiefly to
digests of the State station bulletins. There is a serious question in
my mind as to the utility of State digests by the national department
of results already published extensively by the different States and
distributed under government frank to all similar institutions and to
whomsoever is interested enough to ask for them.
Such digests may or may not be intelligently made, and, even under the
most favorable circumstances, will hardly serve any other purpose than
helping to the reference to the original articles, and this could
undoubtedly be done more satisfactorily to the stations and to the
people at large by general and classified indices to all the State
documents, made as full as possible and issued at stated intervals.
Only a small proportion of the bulletins have been so far noticed by
digest in this record, with no particular rule, so far as I can see,
in the selection. In point of fact, those will be most apt to be
noticed whose authors can find time to themselves send or make for the
purpose their own abstracts. This is, perhaps, inevitable under
present arrangements. Complete and satisfactory digests of all, if
intelligent and critical, imply a far greater force than is at present
at Prof. Atwater's command.
Under these circumstances, it would seem wiser to devote all the
energies of the bureau to digests of the similar literature of other
countries, which would be of immense advantage to our people and to
the different station workers. Judging from the recommendations and
resolutions of the general association, this is the view very
generally held, but except in chemistry and special industries like
that of beet sugar, very little of that kind of work has yet been
attempted.
What is true of the station publications in general is equally true of
special publications. As entomologist of the department, I have been
urged to bring together, at stated intervals, digests of the
entomological publications of the different stations. Such digests to
be of any value, however, should also be critical, and it were a
thankless task for any one to be critic or censor even of that which
needs correction or criticism. Moreover, to do this work intelligently
would require increase of the divisional force, which at present is
more advantageously employed, for, as already intimated, I should have
great doubts of the utility of these digests.
I believe, however, that the division should strive for such increase
of means as would justify the periodic publication, either
independently or as a part of the department record, of general and
classified indices to the entomological matter of the station
bulletins, and should work more and more toward giving results from
other parts of the world. This could, perhaps, best be done by titles
of subject and of author so spaced and printed on stout paper that
they could be cut and used in the ordinary card catalogue. The
recipient could cut and systematically place the titles as fast as
received.
As to the character of the matter of the entomological bulletins, it
will inevitably be influenced by the needs and demands of the people
of the respective States, and while originality should be kept in
mind, there must needs be in the earlier years of the work much
restatement of what is already well known. That some results have been
published of work which reflects no particular credit upon our calling
is a mere incident of the new positions created. Yet we may expect
marked improvement from year to year in this direction, and without
being invidious, I would cite those of Prof. Gillette's on his
spraying experiments and on the plum curculio and plum gouger, as
models of what such bulletins should be.
Although the resolution offered at our last meeting by Prof. Cook, to
the effect that purely descriptive matter should be excluded from the
station bulletins, met with no favor, but was laid on the table, by
the general association, I am in full sympathy with this position and
am strongly of the opinion that in the ordinary bulletins such purely
technical and descriptive matter should be reduced to the necessary
minimum consistent with clearness of statement and accuracy, and that
if it is desired, on the part of the station entomologists, to issue
technical and descriptive papers, a separate series of bulletins were
better instituted for this class of matter.
Finally, for results which it is desired to promptly get before the
people, the agricultural press is at our disposal, and so far as the
entomological work of the department of agriculture is concerned, the
periodical bulletin, _Insect Life_, was established for this purpose.
Its columns are open to all station workers, and I would here appeal
to the members of the association to help make it, as far as possible,
national, by sending brief notes and digests of their work as it
progresses. Hitherto we have been unable to make as much effort in
this direction as we desired, but in future it is our hope to make the
bulletin, as far as possible, a national medium through which the
results of work done in all parts of the country may quickly be put on
record and distributed, not only to all parts of our own country, but
to all parts of the world.
The rapid growth and development of the national department and the
multiplication of its divisions have necessitated special modes of
publication and rendered the annual report almost an anachronism so
far as it pretends to be what it at one time was--a pretty complete
report of the scientific and other work of the department. The
attempts which I have made through the proper authorities to get
Congress to order more pretentious monographic works in quarto volume
similar to those issued by other departments of the government have
not met with encouragement, and in this direction many of the stations
will, let us hope, be able to do better.