in that State which wanted the order to collect and disseminate information about crops, prices, and transportation; establish depots in cities for sale of products, purchase and exchange of seeds; a labor office; and testing of farm supplies and implements. They appointed that year a State agent to buy supplies and implements and issued the first grange paper.

By 1870 there were 40 granges in Minnesota. In 1871, 130 new local granges and 2 State granges were formed. Grange agencies were established in several cities and the movement for grange stores began. That year the somewhat mythical character of the National Grange was disclosed, when, for the first time, the masters of the State granges were invited to attend its annual meeting at Washington. One thousand one hundred and five local granges were organized in 1872, of which 652 were in Iowa. All sections of the country including 25 States now had granges and there were 10 State granges. The celebrations and picnics of this order brought thousands of farming people together. The first delegate session of the National Grange was held in January, 1873, at which 24 men and 4 women represented 11 States. The order grew very rapidly and 32 State granges were represented the next year in the National Grange. A famous "declaration of purposes was issued at this

time.

We propose meeting together, talking together, working together, buying together, selling together, and, in general, acting together for our mutual protection and advancement as occasion may require. * For our business interests we desire to bring producers and consumers, farmers and manufacturers into the most direct and friendly relations possible. Hence we must dispense with a surplus of middlemen. Transportation companies of every kind are necessary and every State should increase facilities for transporting cheaply. We shall advance the cause of education among ourselves and for our children by all just means within our power. We especially advocate for our agricultural and industrial colleges that practical agriculture, domestic science, and all the arts which adorn the home be taught in these courses of study (2).

Conditions arising out of the panic of 1873 greatly intensified and broadened the discontent of the farmers. As a result the membership of the granges grew with marvelous rapidity and reached its maximum of about 1,000,000 men and women in 1875. Meanwhile the order had embarked on an extensive program of cooperative buying and selling, including numerous agencies and stores. Even the manufacture of implements and other articles and the management of banks and life and fire insurance companies were undertaken. The time was not ripe for such a movement in this country and most of these cooperative enterprises failed. However, through them the farmers discovered the real value of the services of middlemen, merchants, and manufacturers and the advantage of direct and large purchases. They were to a certain extent able to modify the existing credit systems. Many farmers got a training in business methods. They learned the power of organization and service and from that time have used it for business purposes in increasing measure. The grange was also very prominent and influential in a broad agrarian movement which sought to improve the conditions of agriculture and rural life through legislation. Numerous farmers' clubs participated in this movement as well as larger organizations, such as the Farmers Alliance, which became competitors of the grange.

It is, however, generally known as the granger movement. This was most influential in the North Central States, California, and Oregon. Its greatest effort was to secure public control of railroads by the States. It secured the passage of laws for the establishment of maximum rates for transportation, the creation of State railroad commissions, prevention of pooling, prohibition of free passes to public officials, etc. There was also much agitation for Federal control, but attempts to secure legislation on this subject by Congress failed. In his work entitled "The Granger Movement," S. J. Buck, of the University of Illinois, sums up the results of this effort as follows:

On the whole it seems that the immediate economic results of the granger agitation for railroad regulation were small. The indirect and

political results of the movement, however, were more important; it led to decisions by the United States Supreme Court which established the right of States to control railroads; and it laid the foundation for later legislation (16).

This movement also brought about State reforms in taxation, public education, the establishment of boards of agriculture, the collection of agricultural statistics, etc., and in the local communities favorably affected many interests. In educational matters the grange stood for the improvement of the rural schools, and from 1878 favored the teaching of agriculture in these schools. While it often criticized the land-grant colleges and in some States attempted strongly to change the character of their agricultural instruction it favored liberal State and Federal support of these institutions and at times helped materially to promote their growth. It also worked efficiently toward the strengthening of the United States Department of Agriculture and the State and Federal legislation for the establishment and maintenance of the agricultural experiment stations.

The failure of its cooperative enterprises and dissatisfaction and differences of opinion regarding its legislative efforts led to a very large decline in the membership of the grange after 1875 and in 1889 it had only about 100,000 paid members. In many localities it disappeared, particularly in the South and West. In the Northeastern and a few North Central States it reverted very largely to its original status as an educational and social organization. On this basis it has done much useful work and in recent years has spread out more widely and again has become one of our largest and most influential farm organizations. As a social organization through its local, State, and national meetings, and even its business enterprises, it has brought large numbers of the farming people together for instructional, recreational, and charitable purposes. In its recognition of the activities of women and young people as essential and important elements in the social life of the farm home and rural community it has done much to better the conditions of country life. It has supported scholarships at some of the agricultural colleges. Many members of the grange have taken part in the 'farmers' institutes and other extension activities or have sent members of their families to the agricultural schools and colleges.

GENERAL EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS

As population spread westward between 1870 and 1890 the free public schools of elementary grade greatly increased in number. In

the South public school systems were established and had considerable growth during this period. The States generally took more interest in education, organized or strengthened departments of education, and materially increased school appropriations. The public high schools greatly increased in number and attendance. By 1890 there were in the North Atlantic States 786 high schools; in the South Atlantic States, 115; in the South Central States, 158; in the North Central States, 1,376; and in the Western States, 91; making a total of 2,526. The principle of public support of higher education had been generally adopted. There were State universities in 33 States, of which 16 had been opened for students after 1865. The courses of instruction in the high schools and colleges were greatly broadened. The free elective system which had been begun by Harvard University in 1867 under the leadership of President Eliot spread rapidly throughout the country during this period. The teaching of the natural sciences was much broadened and specialized and the laboratory method was widely used. The applications of science to the mechanic arts greatly increased in variety and there was enormous development of manufacturing, railroading, mining, irrigation, and road and bridge building. Persons versed in science or engineering were therefore in great demand as experts or teachers. The land-grant institutions especially felt the influence of this demand and enlarged their departments of science, mechanic arts, and engineering to meet it. Students flocked into these departments because the prospect of profitable employment for those who pur sued such courses was so bright.

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION AND RESEARCH IN THIS PERIOD

Overproduction of agricultural products by comparatively crude methods and the depression of agricultural values during this period deterred young men from entering the agricultural courses of the colleges. Even the members of farm organizations which advocated agricultural education often advised students to keep out of the agricultural courses. Much of the agricultural instruction given in the colleges was either too theoretical or did not rise above the level of informational accounts of the farm products and operations. There was in this period little systematic effort to improve agricultural instruction pedagogically or systematically. Each teacher of agri-. culture very largely went his own way. Courses were often arranged to catch students or to meet the needs of young, ill-organized, and poorly equipped institutions. In many of the land-grant institutions the agricultural departments were completely overshadowed by the popular courses in engineering, general sciences, and liberal arts. Nevertheless, agricultural instruction was broadened in scope and the way was opened for the great and rapid development which was soon to follow. A beginning was made in the preparation of suitable textbooks and manuals of agricultural subjects, though less than 100 books on agriculture and related sciences were issued by agricultural college men up to 1895, as compared with nearly 300 in the next decade. It was in this period that Professor Henry of the University of Wisconsin, seeing the small demand for advanced agricultural instruction, organized the first successful short courses

in 1886, and four years later the special dairy school for the practical instruction of men to manage creameries and cheese factories.

It has been shown that from the beginning men who in the early societies advocated the establishment of agricultural schools and colleges expected to make experiments and scientific investigations a part of the work of these institutions. This was included in the consideration of the land grant act of 1862. As soon as colleges were established under this act they undertook such work. Little was accomplished during the first decade, but before the end of that period it became apparent to a number of men engaged in the work of the agricultural colleges that progress in agricultural instruction depended very largely on the accumulation of agricultural knowledge through systematic investigation and experimentation. Professor Hilgard dates the beginning of the experiment station movement in this country from the time of the meeting of the representatives of the land-grant colleges at Chicago in 1871 (p. 192), but before this Professor Johnson and his associates in the Yale Scientific School in Connecticut had inaugurated work looking toward the establishment of such stations. The experiments of Lawes and Gilbert at Rothamsted, England, the investigations of Boussingault in France, and the organized work of experiment stations in Germany, had already attracted attention in this country. From 1855 the United States Patent Office had employed men to conduct investigations in entomology, chemistry, and botany, and this work was enlarged after the Department of Agriculture was established in 1862.

In 1870 the Bussey Institution (p. 43) was established as a branch of Harvard College to give instruction in agriculture and related sciences. In the same year the trustees of the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture granted to the corporation of Harvard College a considerable sum "for the support of a laboratory and for experiments in agricultural chemistry, to be conducted on the Bussey estate." As soon as the laboratory was completed in 1871, F. H. Storer, professor of agricultural chemistry, and his assistants began field tests and chemical analyses of fertilizers. Reports of this work and of investigations on hybridizing plants, the composition of feeding stuffs, injurious fungi, etc., were soon published. The great fire in Boston in 1872 and the commercial crisis of 1873 crippled this institution financially and it did little more original work for a number of years.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

The United States Department of Agriculture established by the act of Congress of May 15, 1862, as an outgrowth of the agricultural division of the Patent Office, became increasingly an important factor in the promotion of agricultural education and research. It published the accounts of the progress of the land-grant institutions and in other ways aided their agricultural work. It distributed seeds and plants collected from domestic and foreign sources. For a number of years the grounds where department buildings now stand were used for field experiments. It published agricultural statistics and developed a system of crop reporting. Investigations in

agricultural chemistry, economic entomology, agricultural botany, forestry, economic zoology, and animal diseases were undertaken and results of large importance in some of these lines were obtained within the first 25 years of the department's operation.

EARLY STATE EXPERIMENT STATIONS

The dearth of agricultural students in the land-grant colleges gave the teachers in the agricultural departments of these colleges time for experimental work and they turned their attention to such work with increased zeal during this period. In 1872, at a convention of representatives of agricultural colleges held in Washington in response to a call issued by the United States Commissioner of Agriculture, the question of the establishment of experiment stations was discussed and the report of a committee in favor of such institutions was adopted by the convention. (See p. 194.)

The University of California decided in 1873 to organize an experiment station and this was done by Professor Hilgard almost as soon as he went to the university in 1875. That year he equipped a laboratory for research in agricultural chemistry and began field experiments on deep and shallow plowing for cereals. Meanwhile Professor Johnson was attempting to secure the definite organization of an experiment station in Connecticut. Peculiar circumstances enabled Prof. W. O. Atwater, who had studied agricultural chemistry in Johnson's laboratory and then in Germany, actually to establish the first State agricultural experiment station in the United States, in 1875, at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., but this was removed to New Haven in 1877 and put under Professor Johnson's direction. For several years its work was carried on in the laboratory of the Sheffield Scientific School. In 1877 the North Carolina Experiment Station was established by the State legislature and located at the State University, which was then a land-grant institution. In New York the Cornell University Experiment Station was organized in 1879 by the voluntary action of the faculty of agriculture of the university, and the following year the New Jersey State Experiment Station was created in connection with the Scientific School of Rutgers College. Prior to the passage of the Hatch Act in 1887, stations were also established in connection with the land-grant institutions in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Tennessee, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Experimental work in agriculture was also carried on in increasing measure at other landgrant colleges during this period. The results of the experimental work of the colleges and stations, while limited in extent and importance, were widely disseminated through their publications and the press.

As early as 1872 the need of increased funds for the land-grant colleges had been so impressed on Mr. Morrill that he introduced in Congress a bill for their further endowment by the Federal Government and repeated this effort many times within the next 18 years. When this for the time being was unavailing, the colleges took advantage of the widespread popularity of the experiment stations and began to plead for national funds for their support. In 1882