U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
 
 OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS, 
 
 A. C. TRUE, Director. 
 
 F. H. HALL. 
 
 Editor and Librarian , New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 
 
 [Reprint from Annual Report of the Office of Experiment Stations for 
 the year ended June 30, 1902.] 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOOK CLASS 
 
 *50.\ A 
 
 VOLUME 
 
ZjO A\0 5" rtc^-r^w. 
 
 “POPULAR” EDITIONS OF STATION BULLETINS. 
 
 By F. H. Hall, 
 
 Editor and Librarian., New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 
 
 In the act of Congress giving national support to the experiment 
 station movement the acquirement and diffusion of information is 
 the ffrst-mentioned of two coordinate lines of station activity. The 
 idea in the word “acquiring” of the act is to some extent modi¬ 
 fied, or explained in the clause stating the second object of the 
 establishment of stations— 44 to promote scientific investigation and 
 experiment ”—and in section 2, which specifies some of the lines along 
 which research efforts may be directed; but beyond providing that 
 annual reports and quarterly bulletins of progress shall be issued, 
 Congress has placed no limitations upon methods of 44 diffusing” 
 the information secured. Certain specifications are, indeed, laid down 
 as to subject-matter for the annual reports, but the stations are left 
 without restriction as to form, size, subject-matter, and manner of 
 treatment of bulletins. 
 
 This omission to order, to recommend, or to forbid any particular 
 form or st}de of announcing results is in accord with the general tenor 
 of the Hatch Act along other lines; for it was the intention of Con¬ 
 gress to give the greatest liberty in matters of detail to the States 
 and to the stations they might establish. It was not, assuredly, the 
 purpose, in passing thus lightly over this phase of station work, to 
 minimize its importance. 
 
 The principal means of communication between a station and its 
 constituents must be the printed page, though there are other subor¬ 
 dinate channels which serve valuable purposes. Personal interviews 
 with members of the staff at the station or elsewhere must be com¬ 
 paratively rare, and station correspondence can reach only scattered 
 individuals, though the information imparted through these channels 
 can be given a pertinency and a fitness for the personal needs of the 
 seekers after knowledge which it does not have when embodied in a 
 pamphlet written to cover conditions of more or less general preva¬ 
 lence. The extension of these two methods of communication by 
 answering letters through the columns of newspapers, by contributing 
 to the press more formal articles relating to station work, and by 
 addressing considerable numbers of farmers at institutes and similar 
 
 S. Doc. 104-31 
 
 , 1.3725 
 
 481 
 
482 
 
 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 
 
 gatherings increases the number of those benefited. But these meth¬ 
 ods are not capable of indefinite expansion and are subject to many 
 objections as primary agencies for distributing information relat¬ 
 ing to experimental investigation. There are undoubtedly stations, 
 especially in States where scientific agriculture is in its infancy, 
 which depend upon these informal methods of communicating with 
 their constituents more than upon bulletins and reports; but it is to 
 be questioned whether such stations are not doing work which belongs 
 more properly to the agricultural college, to the neglect of their own 
 peculiar held—investigation. Extensive correspondence with indi¬ 
 viduals or through the newspapers and frequent trips over the area of 
 country to impart instruction prove very great detriments to careful, 
 consecutive scientific experimentation, and the executives of many 
 stations, who feel that the supreme usefulness of such institutions lies 
 in their investigations, do not make special effort to encourage, though 
 they do not discourage, correspondence and trips to meet and aid the 
 individual farmer. 
 
 For these stations, and to a great extent for all stations, the chief 
 dependence in reaching the farmers, fruit growers, feeders, and 
 breeders who look to them for advice and guidance must be some form 
 of printed matter distributed through the mails; in other words, the 
 reports and bulletins mentioned in the Hatch Act. Since these pub¬ 
 lications now announce net results from the annual expenditure of one 
 and one-fourth million dollars and should ultimately convey “useful 
 and practical information” to more than live and one-half million 
 farmers, the} T deserve most careful study in order to secure the greatest 
 effectiveness at the least outlay. 
 
 There are now, and probably always will be, two quite divergent 
 views regarding the purpose of station effort and the best aim for station 
 publications, and the methods of disseminating information most useful 
 to stations of one class will not be equally applicable to those of another 
 class. That is, the stations which seek, first, to uplift directly the 
 practice of the many badly trained or routine farmers will not work 
 along the same lines nor adapt their publications to the same type of 
 readers as do the stations which direct most of their efforts to the 
 solution of problems involving deep research for basic principles. 
 For stations in either of these two general classes a perfectly uniform 
 system of publications could not be secured, even if it were desirable, 
 since legislative enactments and other local restrictions upon station 
 executives differ greatly in the different States, but it seems unnec¬ 
 essary that each station should vary from almost every other, as is the 
 case now, in the character of the matter found in the annual report or 
 its bulletins, in the general style of presentation of experimental work, 
 and in the classes of publications issued. There undoubtedly can be, 
 and probably will be, developed some general system which, varied 
 in minor details to suit particular conditions, will be found more 
 
POPULAR EDITIONS OF STATION BULLETINS. 
 
 48b 
 
 effective and more economical than any other for the many stations 
 which do work of similar character and grade and appeal to constit¬ 
 uencies very much alike in mental ability and equally advanced in 
 agricultural practice. 
 
 A brief glance at the publications of the American stations will 
 show what diversity of treatment exists. The earlier stations in this 
 country looked to the stations of Germany for methods of dissemina¬ 
 tion of results, as well as for methods of work, and for a short time 
 patterned after them in this respect as far as very different conditions 
 would allow. Foreign stations, particularly those of Germany, make 
 use, to a great extent, of periodicals in announcing their labors. The 
 Landwirtschaftliche Zeitschrifte of the German, Austrian, and Swiss 
 provinces, the Deutsche Landwirtschaftliche Presse, and similar papers 
 serve to promulgate popular information, while the Versuchs-Stationen, 
 Landwirtschaftliche Jahrbucher, Journal fur Landwirtschaft, and 
 various Centralblatter and Zeitungen record the scientific side of sta¬ 
 tion work and are really official organs of single stations or groups of 
 stations; and the various French journals and bulletins serve a similar 
 purpose. The American system has never provided for such official 
 organs; but some of the pre-Hatch Act stations printed and sent to 
 editors small editions of their bulletins which served as copy for such 
 papers as cuffed to print them, and in a few cases selected one paper 
 with which arrangements were made for regular publication. To this 
 plan of newspaper announcement of station results there were, and 
 are, many objections; and when the Congressional enactment extended 
 the franking privilege, the printing of bulletins by the press as a per¬ 
 manent feature ceased. Many stations, however, still avail them¬ 
 selves of newspapers as an additional agency in making known or 
 enforcing points of practical importance brought out by experience 
 or planned experiment. “Press bulletins,” “Timely topics,” “Hints 
 for farmers,” etc., appear to be increasing in number and popularity 
 and indicate a trend in the direction of wider dissemination of the 
 station experience in simple form, a movement in line with the modi¬ 
 fication of the bulletins to be discussed later. 
 
 The Hatch Act requires two classes of publications; and many of the 
 stations coniine themselves to the minimum of kinds and also to the 
 minimum of numbers; others issue from three to six classes of publi¬ 
 cations—bulletins, special bulletins, press bulletins, meteorological 
 bulletins, technical bulletins, circulars, spray calendars, newspaper 
 notices—and publish from five to twent} T bulletins a year. 
 
 The annual report may be merely a leaflet or small pamphlet giving 
 a summary of financial transactions and the briefest account of station 
 progress during the year. It may, on the other hand, be a 500-page 
 volume containing the bulletins issued during the } 7 ear, extended dis¬ 
 cussion of work along practical or scientific lines which have not been 
 published in bulletin form, a statement showing the receipts and 
 
484 
 
 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 
 
 expenditures down to the smallest item, a general survey of station 
 progress and policy by the director, and full reports from each depart¬ 
 ment or upon each line pursued. These are perhaps the extremes, 
 while every gradation between the two types is or has been used by 
 some of our stations. 
 
 The bulletins differ in as marked a manner. There has been a con¬ 
 certed attempt, continued for several years, to secure uniformity in 
 height and width so that the collected station literature might be 
 bound in similar volumes; and reasonable success has attended these 
 efforts, but along other lines diversity appears to be the key word. 
 A bulletin may be a monograph or a miscellany. It may deal exclu¬ 
 sively with a planned experiment to ascertain a single fact; it may be 
 merely an annotated list of the plants of some region, or it may be a 
 manual of cattle feeding or fruit culture. The matter may be written 
 for the advanced chemist and contain 10-syllabled words used without 
 explanation, or for the u book-shy’' feeder to whom “protein” and 
 “carbohydrates'' are as Greek. The pamphlet may be printed on the 
 flimsiest of wood pulp or on supercalendered stock. It may be void 
 of illustrations, crude and faulty in style, even glaringly ungrammat¬ 
 ical; or it may show fine half-tone plates and correct and artistic draw¬ 
 ings, and be a model of correct, clear, and forceful English. If 
 written in popular style for the farmer, the scientist may have to 
 content himself with inadequate data, or he may find in the annual 
 report a full and accurate presentation of the same work. If scien¬ 
 tifically full in its first treatment, the matter may be preceded by a 
 summary in more simple terms, or it may be supplemented by an 
 abridged or popular edition for the untrained or busy reader. A few 
 stations attempt a separation of popular or practical information, and 
 that of a scientific or technical character by issuing bulletins in series 
 separately numbered; while others make no distinction in numbering, 
 but distribute bulletins of special applicability to selected sections of 
 their mailing lists. In other cases all bulletins are sent to each name 
 upon the mailing list, leaving it to the recipient to neglect them, if 
 the}' are technical and he a busy farmer, or if they are popular and 
 the recipient an investigator intent upon causes and principles and sat¬ 
 isfied only with full and logical data. 
 
 Possibly conditions justify all these diverse forms, which appear to 
 have arisen through the efforts of each station, acting independently, 
 to develop a system suited to its needs. The writer would not suggest 
 for any station a radical change to secure uniformity; yet he believes 
 that one feature of the system now in use at the New York Agricul¬ 
 tural Experiment Station is well worth the consideration of station 
 executives. By the introduction of this feature the publications of 
 the station have been fitted to serve better both farmer and scientist, 
 with a lessening of expense for printing. This change in the system 
 of bulletins involves printing them in two editions, one written by the 
 
POFULAR EDITIONS OF STATION BULLETINS. 
 
 485 
 
 experimenter, with a discussion of the work in detail, giving data with 
 fullness and scientific accuracy; while in the other edition it is sought 
 to meet the needs of the farmer and busy man by a short, simply 
 worded outline of the experiments and a clear presentation of the 
 practical bearing of the facts revealed by the work. 
 
 The idea of double publication of results in scientific (unabridged) 
 bulletins and popular editions originated at the North Carolina Station, 
 but to Dr. Jordan, the director of the Geneva Station, is to be given 
 the credit for the successful development of the system. To the writer 
 fell the duty of editorship of the publications, and he has in conse¬ 
 quence taken a deep personal interest in the workings of the system 
 and has sought in various ways to learn to what extent it is a success 
 or failure. Almost without exception the comments which have 
 reached us have been favorable, and the basal idea of the system has 
 been already adopted by some stations and is soon to be used by 
 others. The few adverse criticisms have been due to misconceptions 
 of the plan and its purpose or to differences of opinion as to the style 
 best suited to the popular edition. 
 
 The farmers of the State seem to prefer the “popular” edition, 
 though free to choose either; and many of them have assured the 
 station that these bulletins are much more generally read and followed 
 in practice than was the case when one edition was issued.. Of more 
 than 36,000 persons in the State receiving bulletins from this station, 
 less than 900 (2£ per cent) have requested that the complete bulletins 
 be sent them regularly. Man}" papers also have spoken well of the 
 system, and in numerous instances have aided to spread the information 
 sent out by reprinting the popular bulletins in full. To the extent 
 to which this is done the station is assured of correct and effective 
 announcement of its work, while the ordinary newspaper abstract of 
 station publications is often misleading, if not incorrect. 
 
 The system would probably not have been so applicable nor so well 
 received earlier in the history of the station, nor is it now of as great 
 value to stations doing “pioneer” work for the agriculture of their 
 section. The earlier stations, certainly, and probably every station, 
 to a considerable extent, found it necessary to teach many elementary 
 truths of immediate utility which could be brought out by “practical” 
 experiments and whose application to farm methods would work great 
 benefit to agriculture. These dealt largely with details of practice, 
 and while the experiments had to be carried out with more care than 
 the farmer would use and included lines of inquiry he would not 
 think of, they did not, in most cases, involve much with which the 
 ordinary agriculturist was unfamiliar. The announcement of the 
 results could be given in detail sufficient for the purposes of fellow 
 investigators, yet not greatly weary the farmer, since the stations 
 were working with agencies he knew well. It is probable, however, 
 that even with experiments of this elementary character the farmer 
 
486 
 
 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 
 
 of ten or twenty years ago would have preferred a shorter and more 
 familiar account to the long treatises he sometimes received. 
 
 There were also some new principles relating to fertilizers and their 
 application, feeding problems, insecticides and fungicides, bacteria in 
 dairying, and allied topics, in which the tiller of the soil and the 
 feeder must be instructed and which they must be led to use by 
 repeated illustrative experiments. Bulletins dealing with work of 
 this character were written for the farmer alone usually and not for 
 the scientist, and it was necessary in them to write at length and with 
 many different presentations of the same idea in order that the read¬ 
 ers might get a clear and comprehensive view of the new truths pre¬ 
 sented. The proportion of such bulletins was much greater during 
 the first ten years of general station activity than it need be now, 
 when this foundation work has been well done by numerous stations, 
 and when the principles of fertilizer application, feeding, dairying, 
 and soil treatment are understood by a numerous body of institute 
 workers, contributors to the agricultural press, and leading farmers in 
 almost every community. 
 
 Practical experiments are still needed; many of them and careful 
 ones carried through such long periods of time and with such close 
 checking of conditions that the data accumulated will be of scientific 
 value and will be worth study by experts, both to be certain that no 
 errors of interpretation have led to false conclusions and as a basis for 
 planning work along similar or slightly^ divergent lines. The farmer, 
 however, is too busy a man in this hustling age to be willing, if able, 
 to give attention to the details of long or complex experiments, even 
 in fields familiar to him. Through ten or fifteen years of experience 
 with station workers, with few instances of incapacity or lack of 
 thoroughness and almost none of dishonesty, the discriminating farmer 
 has learned to trust station conclusions and does not ask fullness of 
 detail so that he may have a check upon the experimenter. In our 
 experience, at least, he prefers the concise, simply worded outline of 
 the experiments, with plainly stated practical conclusions and careful 
 directions for applying to his own work the truths developed. 
 
 Station work in America tends now, as it has done for years abroad, 
 toward deeper studies than have occupied the majority of workers in 
 the past, and many investigations now call into play the keenest facul¬ 
 ties of the physiological chemist, the bacteriologist, the plant physi¬ 
 ologist and pathologist, the entomologist, the biologist, as well as the 
 trained hand and e} T e and the fund of experience of practical handlers 
 and judges of the processes and products of the farm and garden. 
 These investigations lead into realms where the most intelligent farmer 
 need not be ashamed to confess himself lost, vet the results are likely 
 in the future, as they have in some cases in the past, to revolutionize 
 some branch of agricultural practice. The details of such investiga¬ 
 tions, the preliminary discussions which prepare the ground for intel- 
 
POPULAR EDITIONS OF STATION BULLETINS. 
 
 487 
 
 ligent understanding of the work, and the theories proven or over¬ 
 thrown by the results are of little interest to the practical agricultur¬ 
 ist. He can not read understanding^ such a discussion of work of 
 this character as would satisfy the student, and he can not be blamed 
 if he relegates the scientific bulletin to his file unread or even throws 
 it into the waste basket with an expression of dissatisfaction at the 
 station for sending it. Yet the brief story of the investigation put in 
 homety, everyday words, with an indication of the possibilities of 
 practical benefit from the work, he may read in ten minutes and find 
 extremely interesting and profitable. If he chance to be a specialist 
 along the line covered by the bulletin and desirous of studying the 
 question further the full details are accessible in the regular edition, 
 and this the expense of a postal card will secure b} r return mail. He 
 need not wait until the freshness of his desire has lessened or the lapse 
 of time made him forget, as in the case where scientific discussions are 
 given only in the annual report of the station. 
 
 On the other hand, scientists and fellow-investigators, if interested 
 at all in an experiment, are interested in the details and in the discus¬ 
 sion of theories and principles. Data should be placed in the hands of 
 these men as soon as practicable and with the fullness of detail which 
 the experimenter considers desirable. The latter should not be ham¬ 
 pered for space, as is often felt to be necessary when large editions of 
 bulletins must be printed, in which the expense of a few additional 
 pages counts up rapidly. Neither should the author be compelled to 
 delay publication, both since credit for scientific work frequently 
 depends on priority of announcement and since the facts discovered, 
 if valuable as a guide in further investigation, are doubl} r valuable if 
 soon made known. The long dela} T in appearance of annual reports 
 which have to pass through the hands of State printers must certainly 
 be exasperating to the man who has done a good piece of work and 
 sees weeks and months pass while his discovery lies buried in manu¬ 
 script. It may be said that such discoveries should be announced in 
 scientific periodicals and credit thus secured. This might serve were 
 the experimenters alone concerned; but unless great care is used, both 
 by the author and by the journal in which he publishes, the station 
 does not receive its proper share of the credit for the work. Most 
 stations on this account demand that members of their experimental 
 corps announce results first in station publications. 
 
 Thus, to secure effectiveness for two very diverse classes of interested 
 readers and to insure the prompt appearance of both popular and 
 scientific discussions of work performed, the complete and summarized 
 editions have advantages over other forms of station publications. 
 This double publication also gives a stimulus to station workers, who 
 as a rule are scientific men, in the opportunity which it affords of pre¬ 
 senting the result of their researches in a full and scientific manner; 
 
488 
 
 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 
 
 and any stimulus to scientific enthusiasm is desirable. Such an oppor¬ 
 tunity is not supplied by the publication that is a compromise between 
 a scientific and a popular presentation. 
 
 It is probably the first thought of those to whom the idea is new that 
 such duplicate discussion of results means a great increase in expense. 
 The contrary is true so far as printing is concerned, for the setting up 
 of type for the popular edition is a very small item—the saving in 
 paper, presswork, and handling, through the smaller size of the popu¬ 
 lar bulletins, a large one when 10,000 or more bulletins are printed. 
 In the last report of the Office of Experiment Stations the bulletins 
 issued by the stations during the fiscal year are listed. The total num¬ 
 ber of pages contained in those which, from their titles, appear suit¬ 
 able for publication in two editions is 7,400, and the average number 
 of names on the mailing lists is nearly 12,000. To print 7,400 pages 
 of matter in an edition of 12,000 at 50 cents a page for each 1,000 
 copies, which is a fair figure, would cost $44,000. If complete and 
 popular editions were printed, it would probably be necessary to make 
 the editions 2,000 and 11,000, respectively, providing 1,000 copies for 
 duplication, and the popular edition, at the ratio which exists between 
 the two editions at Geneva, would contain 2,100 pages. The 2,000 
 copies of the complete edition would cost at 55 cents a page per 1,000 
 copies (also a fair figure for editions of this size) $8,140, and the 
 12,000 copies of the popular edition at 50 cents a page per 1,000 would 
 cost $19,690, which makes a total for the two editions of a little more 
 than $27,800, a saving over the cost of the single bulletin of $17,000. 
 
 But it is not to the average station, and especially not to the station 
 publishing the mininum number of the bulletins and sending them to 
 a few addresses, that the system is particularly applicable, but rather 
 to those publishing ten or more bulletins annually and having mailing- 
 lists of from 15,000 to 40,000 names. For the station publishing 10 
 bulletins of 30 pages each (which is about the average size) and hav¬ 
 ing a mailing list of 20,000 names, the yearly saving in the cost of 
 
 printing would be $1,830, as follows: 
 
 20,000 copies of 300 pages (10 bulletins of 30 pages each), 
 
 at 50 cents a page per 1,000 copies. S3, 000 
 
 2,400 copies of 300 pages, at 55 cents a page per 1,000 copies. $396 
 18,000 copies of 86 pages (popular), at 50 cents a page per 
 1,000 copies. 774 
 
 Total. 1,170 
 
 Difference. 1, 830 
 
 The figures just given are based upon the ratio derived from the 
 comparison of the number of pages in the complete bulletins issued at 
 Geneva and the popular editions of the same bulletins, but this ratio 
 does not express one which might be established and which would 
 decrease the expense for the popular bulletins about one-fifth, since 
 each bulletin issued by this station, whether complete or popular, 
 
POPULAR EDITIONS OF STATION BULLETINS. 
 
 489 
 
 devotes two pages to cover and list of officers. Many stations might 
 consider these pages unnecessary, in large part at least, for popular 
 
 bulletins. 
 
 Against the saving thus shown must be placed the cost of prepara¬ 
 tion and proof reading of the extra edition, but for stations publishing 
 extensively, at least, the saving will provide the salary of an addi¬ 
 tional member of the staff, to combine editorial duties with some other 
 functions. An editor, chosen with regard to his fitness for such work, 
 can assist the other members of the staff materially in the preparation 
 of manuscripts for the regular bulletins; he secures uniformity in sta¬ 
 tion publications and insures accuracy, clearness, and force in the pre¬ 
 sentation of results; he relieves the experimenters of the unfamiliar 
 and, to many, distasteful work of the proof reading and of the weari¬ 
 some struggles with printers; he provides for correct and pleasing 
 typography and satisfactory handling of the printed matter, and in 
 many other ways may be of great value in keeping the publications of 
 the station up to the mark or improving them. Such work frequently 
 falls upon the director, but much of it is of a routine character and 
 hardly worth the time and attention of so highly paid an officer. 
 
 The editor would also write the popular editions, familiarizing him¬ 
 self both with the experimental side of the work and with actual prac¬ 
 tice, so that his discussions may be both true to the fact and applicable 
 to existing conditions. 
 
 Editorial duties will not occupy all the time of one man at any of our 
 stations, but one who is capable of doing good editorial work should 
 also be a valuable assistant in many other directions. Since the 
 saving on the popular bulletins would nearly or quite pay the salary 
 of a well-qualified man, his services in other directions would be so 
 much gained to the station, either in direct productive effort or in 
 economy of the time of men who desire to devote all their energies to 
 investigation. 
 
 For stations publishing but few bulletins, of course, the employ¬ 
 ment of a special editor is not feasible; but the rewriting of the results 
 of scientific or complex experiments into shorter, simpler form can be 
 satisfactory done by the author of each bulletin, by some member of 
 the staff who shows special fitness for such work, or even by some 
 writer for the press who is familiar with agricultural science and 
 agricultural practice. It is probable that by any of these methods 
 some financial advantage would be gained, and it seems certain to the 
 writer that opportunity afforded for careful discussion in the complete 
 bulletin would be appreciated b} T the experimenter and his scientific 
 readers, and that the conciseness, simplicity, and readableness of 
 the popularized bulletins would appeal with enough greater force 
 to the farming constituency of the station to justify the rewriting if 
 the cost were not wholly met by the lessened expense of printing. 
 

 
 
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