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-operatio