might be required. A circular was sent out from Washington some time last February, incorporating a paragraph from a letter of the First Comptroller of the Treasury, which I have in my hand. That gives a sufficient indication of what the Treasury Department wants in the nature of a financial statement. It will not take me long to read the original letter from the Comptroller. I will read first the question submitted to him:

Are these institutions to simply render an annual statement of receipts and expenditures to the Secretary of the Treasury, without vouchers, the auditing to be done by the respective governing boards within the several States, or is such annual financial statement to be sent to the Treasury Department, with vouchers, to be examined and audited there?

In response, Comptroller Durham says:

Such annual financial statement, with vouchers, should not be sent to the Treasury Department to be audited there. Section 3 of the act referred to simply provides that it shall be the duty of the said stations annually, on or before the 1st day of February, to make to the governor of the State or Territory in which the station is located a full and detailed report of its operations, including a statement of receipts and expenditures, a copy of which report shall be sent to each of said stations, to the Commissioner of Agriculture, and to the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.

A copy, simply. The Comptroller says, as his official opinion, that a copy of the report made to the governor is to be sent to the Secretary of the Treasury. Answering the first question covered the whole of my letter, so he did not answer the other questions, which were in detail, in case he thought the report ought to be in part or in whole audited at Washington. The Comptroller stated verbally in connection with the letter, when he was called upon to further explain one or two points in regard to it (although it seemed to be clear enough), that the general principle on which he rested his opinion was that the act of 1887, being explicitly a supplement to the act of 1862, was an act donating to the several States, not lands this time, but money, for specific yet very generally expressed purposes, and after the money went into the possession of the several States accepting the provisions of the act it was entirely under the control of the proper officials in those States, and the United States Treasury had nothing further to do with the matter save in two particulars-the law required the Secretary of the Treasury to see the annual statement, in order to ascertain what the unexpended balance might be at the end of the fiscal year, that that might be deducted from the appropriation for the next fiscal year; and further, the law limited the appropriation in the matter of expenditure for buildings, and therefore the statement to the Secretary of the Treasury should show how far that clause in the law had been observed. Hence the Comptroller decided that only a copy of the report made to the governor should be sent to Washington, exactly in accordance with the law, without other papers. He advised, for the comfort and convenience of the officials at Washington as well as for the good of the institutions themselves, that before the first report should be made by the

stations this Association or the stations in some way, by concurrent action, should agree upon a form for the final report, and that it should cover.these two points, building and total; he did not care much what else it included, so long as it was short and covered that ground. He preferred that the form should be the same or very similar from the various stations, and that the whole statement should be put upon one printed or written page, which he thought was sufficient. Therefore, without attempting to dictate, Judge Durham said he hoped the form of the final report would be this: A copy of a ledger account; the final or general account of the ledger, termed in book-keeping "general account;" "final account;" "balance account," containing simply, under a proper caption, the ledger titles of the various cash accounts which have been kept, with the sum total of the ledger accounts opposite those titles; that one of those ledger accounts should be entitled "building" or "buildings," and he did not care what we called the others or how many there were, whether two or a dozen. Preference was for rather a small number, and yet he believed we should satisfy our State authorities better if we entered into a more extended classification.

Proceeding on that basis, I asked the Comptroller if he would not go into details a little and sit down with me and designate some of the titles he thought desirable. This resulted in an enumeration of fifteen ledger titles, which I have here. He said he would rather have twelve than seventeen, but seventeen would do no harm, provided they could be put on one page. On a subsequent occasion, one day last week, I went in with this old letter as to the general policy and learned that he had not changed his mind about it at all, but held to it still. He said if he had framed the law he would have followed this money closer. But he did not frame the law and it was only his business to construe it, and there was no doubt but that the money belonged to the State, to be audited within the State, and he did not think there was any requirement for auditing elsewhere unless the State chose to insist upon it. Following his plan, I used the figures of the Maryland station for the last year and took back to him a form which, being slightly modified, he said would be entirely satisfactory to the Treasury officials, and he thought the certificate which was appended would be satisfactory evidence to the Treasury Department of the proper administration of the financial affairs. The form is substantially as upon the blackboard on the left: "Financial annual report to the governor. Copy to the Secretary of Treasury." The heading is: Agricultural Experiment Station, in account with the United States." Debit the whole amount, $15,000. Credit with the ledger totals, salaries, labor, building, etc., with the amount in one or two columns; the form to be uniform and the matter to be variable according to the circumstances in the several States. I have the list here. There are seventeen totals, very similar to those of President Smart. There is no such total in my list as "insurance." One thing I took particular pains about and called to

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the attention of Judge Durham was "incidental expenses; " this should be reduced to the lowest possible point. I will read the certificate to be attached, which he also passed upon as similar to that in use by the United States and acceptable to him:

We, the undersigned, duly appointed auditors of the corporation, do hereby certify that we have examined the books and accounts of the experiment station for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1888, and we find the same well kept and correctly classified as above; that the receipts for the time named are shown to have been $15,000 and the corresponding disbursements $14,975.26, for all of which proper vouchers are on file and have been by us examined and found correct, thus leaving an unexpended balance of $24.74 to be accounted for in the fiscal year commencing July 1, 1888.

This is only the certificate of the duly appointed auditors, and need not be sworn to.

Only the receipts from the United States are mentioned-the gross receipts. It will be very confusing to the Department, and it might be very prejudicial to the interest of the institutions in the several States, if anything except the money received under Congressional appropri ation were entered in the account, a copy of which is rendered to the Department at Washington. Any other receipts or any aid from the State are a matter with which the United States has nothing to do, and we had better make them the subject of a separate report to the governor of our own State, no copy to be sent to the Treasury Department at Washington, as it is not wanted there. I asked whether a manuscript copy or a printed copy would be required, and was told a manuscript copy would be entirely satisfactory.

If it is in order for me to make a motion now, I move that this subject, at the conclusion of the debate, be referred to a select committee of three, to report to the convention at a later hour.

The motion was agreed to.

Mr. SMART. In my opinion we should protect ourselves by adopting. the suggestions of the First Comptroller of the Treasury. While I believe the form to which I have referred is a form that I would like very much for my own use and wish to keep it, because I really want to know what the various departments are expending in detail, I am sure we shall protect ourselves from criticism by adopting the suggestions that have been presented by Major Alvord. There are some other points. I would like to have the question of size of bulletins, title-page, etc., referred to a committee. I understood from the president that a committee had been provided for. Is that so?

The PRESIDENT. The motion was just made. We have adopted the practice of referring all these subjects to a committee to report finally to the convention, in order to ascertain its sense. Major Alvord just now made a motion, which has been carried, that at the close of this discussion such committee be appointed to take into account this whole subject.

Mr. SMART. That is satisfactory to me.

The PRESIDENT. It would be well for any person who has any particular point to suggest either to go to the committee by arrangement, or, better still, to submit the matter in writing.

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. President, I would like to mention briefly just one point in regard to a record of the scientific data of our experiments. In some States, as in Maine, the annual report will be distributed to the entire mailing list. In the report of the Maine Station for 1886–'87 I adopted the plan-and I rather like it, perhaps because it is my ownof giving, as the director of the station, a résumé of its work. To this general account were added reports for the several departments. Under these heads I put nothing about the methods of analysis or form of experiments, but gave only results, and information to show their practical bearings. At the end of the report I have a section which I entitle "Analytical and Experimental Methods," where I enter up the data for the use and reference of co-workers.

The PRESIDENT. The time has arrived at which the Association voted to adjourn. This subject must be continued until the next meeting. It has been voted that a committee be appointed. The President, having ascertained that Dr. Smart will not be able to remain, has appointed Messrs. Alvord, Tracy, and Armsby, and would like to ask the Association to allow him thus to announce the committee without precluding the return to the subject when we assemble, in order that they may have the subject in mind.

Mr. SMART. May I make a suggestion? It is important that we know what is to be done in reference to the financial report at once. I want this committee charged with the duty of sending their conclusions immediately to each director or college president interested.

The PRESIDENT. The conclusions will be formulated by the convention. This committee will report to the convention and the convention will act upon their report, and I presume copies can be sent immediately to each institution.

Mr. SMART. Some of them are not represented here, and some means ought to be provided to inform them.

The PRESIDENT. That will undoubtedly be done. Before we adjourn the chair will call attention to the meeting at the opera house this evening at half past seven. The gentlemen who are on the programme as speakers are not present, but the executive committee, in connection with the local committee, have provided other speakers.

At this point, 2.30 p. m., the Association adjourned until Thursday morning, at 9 o'clock.

EVENING SESSION, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 1889.

PUBLIC MEETING.

The public meeting was opened in Staub's Opera House, in the presence of a large and appreciative audience of citizens of Knoxville, by C. W. Dabney, jr., Ph. D., President of the University of Tennessee. In addition to the annual address of the President of the Association, printed in this report, addresses were made by William Le Roy Broun, LL. D., President of the Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College; by James K. Patterson, Ph. D., President of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky; by Merrill Edwards Gates, Ph. D., LL. D., L. H. D., President of Rutgers College, N. J.; by G. H. Whitcher, B. S., director of the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station; and by Edwin Willits, M. A., President of the Michigan Agricultural College and director of its Experiment Station.

After prayer had been offered by Rev. Dr. Sutherland, Mr. Dabney said: Ladies and gentlemen, I have the pleasure of introducing to your acquaintance this evening an Association representing two of the greatest agencies in the world for advancing the interests of our race and ameliorating its condition.

The Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations represents education and science-the education of the masses of the people and research in natural science, especially that connected with agriculture. The wisest men of the world, or at least the vast majority of them, believe that the three forces now at work in our midst to improve the condition of our race are religion, science, and education. This Association represents, in the most unique manner, two of these great agencies. It represents, on the one hand, the land-grant colleges established in each State of the Union by the Congressional act of 1862, having somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 professors and 12,000 students, and possessing an endowment of about $15,000,000.

On the other hand, it represents the agricultural experiment stations of the country, founded within the last two years by another grant of Congress, having an income of over half a million dollars, for research in the sciences connected with agriculture. The Association met in Knoxville this week. We, the University of Tennessee and the people of Knoxville, of course feel very much honored by its presence, espe cially since we find represented here by two or more members all but eight States of the Union.

I now take pleasure in introducing to you President Atherton, of the State College of Pennsylvania. [Applause.]

Mr. ATHERTON then said: Ladies and gentlemen, the custom of organizations like ours requires that at each annual meeting the Presi dent of the association shall deliver an address, either devoted to some