Immediately connected with the question of co-operation is the
relation of the National Department of Agriculture and the State
experiment stations. The relation, instead of being vital and
authoritative, is, in reality, a subordinate one. Many persons
interested in the advancement of agriculture foresaw the advantage of
having experiment stations attached to the State agricultural colleges
founded under the Morrill act of 1862; but I think that in the minds
of most persons the establishment of these stations implied some such
connection with the national department as that outlined in an address
on Agricultural Advancement in the United States, which I had the
honor to deliver in 1879 before the National Agricultural Congress, at
Rochester, and in which the following language was used:
"In the light of the past history of the German experimental
stations and their work, or of that in our own State of
Connecticut, the expediency of purchasing an experimental farm of
large dimensions in the vicinity of Washington is very
questionable. There can be no doubt, however, of the value of a
good experimental station there that shall have its branches in
every State of the Union. The results to flow from such stations
will not depend upon the number of acres at command, and it will
be far wiser and more economical for the commissioner to make each
agricultural college that accepted the government endowment
auxiliary to the national bureau, so that the experimental farm
that is now, or should be, connected with each of these
institutions might be at its service and under the general
management of the superintendent of the main station. There is
reason to believe that the directors of these colleges would
cheerfully have them constituted as experimental stations under
the direction of the department, and thus help to make it really
national--the head of a vast system that should ramify through all
parts of the land....
"With the different State agricultural colleges, and the State
agricultural societies, or boards, we have every advantage for
building up a national bureau of agriculture worthy of the country
and its vast productive interests, and on a thoroughly economical
basis, such as that of Prussia, for instance."
In short, the view in mind was something in the nature of that which
has since been adopted by our neighbors of the North, where there is a
central or national station or farm at Ottawa and sub-stations or
branch farms at Nappan, Nova Scotia, Brandon, Manitoba, Indian Head,
N.W.T., and Agassiz, British Columbia, all under the able direction of
Mr. William Saunders, one of our esteemed fellow workers. It was my
privilege to be a good deal with Mr. Saunders when he was in Europe
studying the experience of other countries in this matter, and the
policy finally adopted in Canada as a result of his labors is an
eminently wise one, preventing some of the difficulties and dangers
which beset our plan, whether as between State and nation or college
and station.
Under the present laws and with the vast influence which the
Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations will
wield, both in Congress and in the different States, there is great
danger of transposition, in this agricultural body politic, of those
parts which in the animal body are denominated head and tail, and the
old saw to the effect that "the dog wags the tail because the tail
cannot wag the dog," will find another application. So far as the law
goes, the national department, which should hold a truly national
position toward State agricultural institutions depending on federal
support, can do little except by suggestion, whether in the line of
directing plans or in any way co-ordinating or controlling the work of
the different stations throughout the country. The men who influenced
and shaped the legislation which resulted in the Hatch bill were
careful that the department's function should be to indicate, not to
dictate; to advise and assist, not to govern or regulate. We have,
therefore, to depend on such relationships and such plans of
co-operation as will appear advantageous to all concerned, and these
can best be brought about through such associations as are now in
convention here.
Without such plans there is great danger of such waste of energy and
means and duplication of results as will bring the work into popular
disfavor and invite disintegration, for already there is a growing
feeling that agricultural experiment is and will be subordinated to
the ordinary college work in the disposition of the federal
appropriations.
What is true of the national department as a whole in its connection
with the State stations is true in a greater or less degree of the
different divisions of the department in connection with the different
specialists of the stations. With the multiplicity of workers in any
given direction in the different States, the necessity for national
work lessens. A favorite scheme of mine in the past, for instance (and
one I am glad to say fully indorsed by Prof. Willits), was to endeavor
to have a permanent agent located in every section of the country that
was sufficiently distinctive in its agricultural resources and
climate, or, as a yet further elaboration of the same plan, one in
each of the more important agricultural States. The necessity for such
State agents has been lessened, if not obviated, by the Hatch bill,
and the subsequent modifications looking to permanent appropriations
to the State stations or colleges, which give no central power at
Washington. The question then arises, What function shall the national
department perform? Its influence and field for usefulness have been
lessened rather than augmented in the lines of actual investigation in
very many directions. Many a State is already far better equipped both
as to valuable surrounding land, laboratory and library facilities,
more liberal salaries, and greater freedom from red tape,
administrative routine, and restrictions as to expenditures, than we
are at Washington; and, except as a directing agent and a useful
servant, I cannot see where the future growth of the department's
influence is to be outside of those federal functions which are
executive. Just what that directing influence is to be is the question
of the hour, not only in the broader but in the special sense. The
same question, in a narrower sense, had arisen in the case of the few
States which employed State entomologists. In the event, for instance,
of an outbreak of some injurious insect, or in the event of any
particular economic entomological question within the limits of the
State having such an officer, the United States entomologist would
naturally feel that any effort on his part would be unnecessary, or
might even be looked upon as an interference. He would feel that there
was always danger of mere duplication of observation or experiment,
except where appealed to for aid or co-operation. This is, perhaps,
true only of insects which are local or sectional, and is rather a
narrow view of the matter, but it is one brought home from experience,
and is certainly to be considered in our future plans. The favor with
which the museum work of the national division was viewed by you at
the meeting last November and the amount of material sent on for
determination would indicate that the building up of a grand national
reference collection will be most useful to the station workers. But
to do this satisfactorily we need your co-operation, and I appeal to
all entomologists to aid in this effort by sending duplicates of their
types to Washington, and thus more fully insuring against ultimate
loss thereof.