Townshend Hall of the Ohio State University included apparatus for studying the specific gravity of soils, volume weight of soils, power of loose and of compact soil to retain moisture, rate of flow of air through soils, rate of percolation of water through soils, effect of mulches on evaporation of water from soils, effect of cultivation on evaporation of water from soils, power of dry soil to absorb moisture from the air, and the capillary rise of water through soils. Mechanical analyses were also made of typical soils. A large glasshouse with its equipment of pots, trucks, and tracks afforded opportunity for the student to test the adaptability of crops to various soils, the fertilizer requirements of soils, and to experiment on various other problems of crop growth.

At the same time in the agricultural building of the Illinois college there were separate laboratories for work in soil fertility, soil physics, and soil bacteriology.

For the study of farm crops the Minnesota agricultural college had a seed-breeding laboratory, which furnished facilities for special instruction in field seeds and in laboratory work in plant breeding. The college possessed a stereopticon with several hundred lantern slides, including illustrations of crops, implements, machinery, processes of drainage, etc.; imported models of wheat and of clover flowers and seeds; many charts of root systems and illustrations of floral organs which had been drawn at this institution; also maps and designs of farm plans, both for laying out new farms. and for reorganizing old ones.

There were also in a number of colleges collections of many different kinds of grasses, cereals, and other crops, and of seeds of useful and noxious plants, as well as a great variety of farm implements and machinery.

Domestic animals of different kinds were increasingly kept by the colleges for instructional purposes, and the students also had many opportunities for observing breeding and feeding experiments, and participating in the judging, care, and management of such animals. With dairy cattle different kinds of stalls and fixtures were often used._ In the latter part of the period milking machines were installed. For the handling of milk and the making of butter and cheese many of the colleges began to have equipment which compared favorably with that in commercial establishments.

The libraries of the agricultural colleges also made material growth during this period. Not only were there large collections of the publications of the United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Education, and other Government establishments and of the experiment stations and State departments of agriculture and education, and reports of similar institutions in foreign countries, but also numerous scientific and agricultural books and journals published in this and other countries. More attention was also paid to the arrangement and cataloguing of these collections and the facilities and personal service which would make them readily available to teachers and students.

Much was done during this period in the preparation and publication of textbooks and manuals on agriculture and related sciences. The Annual Report of the Office of Experiment Stations for 1903 contained an article on the development of the textbook of agri

culture in North America up to 1900, by L. H. Bailey. This was followed by the report of the bibliographer of the Association of Agricultural Colleges at its meeting in November, 1906, which contained a list of 389 books, the work of 198 men and women at some time connected with agricultural colleges and experiment stations. In this list was included Bailey's Cyclopedia of American Horticulaure, published in 1906, which was soon followed by his Cyclopedia of American Agriculture.

COLLEGE FARMS

As the agricultural work of the college became more extensive and diversified the amount of land used in connection with instruction increased. Part of this land was used for the growing of crops with which to feed the college livestock and, in some cases, the students. Fields were also set aside for the growing of crops that were being tested with reference to their adaptability to the region, or for the demonstration of different methods of planting, fertilizing, cultivating, draining, irrigating, and harvesting. Orchards of different kinds and varieties of fruits, and plantations of small fruits, vegetables, and flowers occupied considerable space. At some colleges there were small plantations of forest trees. There were also the more or less extensive fields, orchards, and series of plats used by the experiment stations on which numerous varieties of many kinds of plants were grown under a great variety of conditions. At some institutions there were botanic gardens in which were grown many native and foreign plants, particularly those of some economic importance.

At some colleges the farms were under a single general management, portions of the farm being temporarily assigned to the experiment station and different college departments. In other cases the experiment-station land was permanently separate, and in a few institutions there were permanent assignments of land to the different departments which assumed their management for special purposes. While the old compulsory manual-labor system for students disappeared, there was a considerable amount of required labor on a field-laboratory plan. A certain number of students were employed and paid for part-time work on the college and station lands. The students generally observed the station experiments and thus became familiar with whatever useful progress in new directions the stations were making. The use of large tracts of land in connection with agricultural instruction and experimentation marked a somewhat radical departure from the conception that higher agricultural education should be very largely a matter of lectures and laboratory work as was held by some of the early leaders in this movement, e. g., by S. W. Johnson and E. W. Hilgard.

The acreage of land used in 1910 by some agricultural colleges, largely as farms and experiment grounds, was as follows: Illinois 620 acres, Iowa 1,200, Kansas 800, Massachusetts 400, Minnesota 420, Mississippi 2,000, New York 638, Oregon 180, Pennsylvania 600, and South Carolina 1,544.

INCREASED FEDERAL FUNDS FOR AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

The growth of public interest in the agricultural colleges, the enlarged faculties and student bodies, and the provision of more elaborate buildings and equipment brought upon the experiment stations additional burdens which they could not bear satisfactorily without more well-trained workers and larger financial support. Attention was called to the needs of the stations in the report of the Director of the Office of Experiment Stations for 1902.

So rapidly has the demand for the services of agricultural experts spread in different directions that the workers in this service have in many instances been overworked, or at least have been forced to dissipate their energies in attempts to cover too many fields. There is therefore a most urgent necessity that the number of workers in our agricultural institutions should be increased so as to permit proper specialization of work. It is of little use to construct expensive laboratories and equip them with elaborate apparatus unless they are manned with first-class investigators.

An editorial by E. W. Allen, published about this time in the Experiment Station Record, was cited, which pointed out that

the character of the work of the stations is gradually undergoing a change. The simpler and more superficial problems in many lines of agriculture have been solved to a large extent and demonstrated beyond doubt. The more complex and intricate investigations involving deeper and more time-consuming research will be the field more largely occupied by the leading stations in the future.

At the meeting of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations at Atlanta, Ga., October 7, 1902, a resolution offered by Eugene Davenport, of Illinois, was adopted, which instructed the executive committee

if in its judgment it should seem expedient, to urge upon Congress at the earliest practicable date that the appropriation to the several States under the Hatch Act be increased by the sum of $15,000 annually.

The increased importance of the experiment stations was also brought out at this meeting through an amendment to the constitution of the association offered by W. A. Henry, of Wisconsin, and adopted the next year, which provided for a section on experiment station work.

The executive committee decided that it would be unwise to attempt legislation for increased Federal endowment of the experiment stations in the Fifty-seventh Congress, but laid the foundation for future action in this direction by asking the Director of the Office of Experiment Stations to present in his next annual report a statement of the present conditions and work of the experiment stations and of the need of additional funds for their work. Such a report was made in 1903. Nothing further was done in this matter at the Washington meeting of the association that year, but immediately thereafter W. A. Henry called on his long-time friend, Henry Cullen Adams (fig. 16), former dairy and food commissioner in Wisconsin, and then a new member of the National House of Representatives. Mr. Adams readily agreed to undertake to secure the passage of a bill giving additional Federal aid to the experiment stations. With the aid of the Director of the Office of Experiment Stations a bill

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for this purpose was drawn and introduced in the House by Mr. Adams on January 4, 1904. Stress was laid by Dean Henry and the writer on the need of funds especially for research. The Adams bill was therefore so worded as to restrict the use of this new fund to paying the expenses of original research in agriculture.

The executive committee of the association cooperated actively with Mr. Adams, and his measure had widespread support from the agricultural press and farm organizations. It also early received favorable consideration from a large number of Congressmen. But the leaders in Congress had set themselves firmly against increase

of Federal appropriations. Therefore this bill made no progress during the Fifty-eighth Congress. It was reintroduced in somewhat modified form by Mr. Adams early in the first session of the Fiftyninth Congress, and on January 15, 1906, he was able to make a favorable report on this bill from the House Committee on Agricul ture. It then made relatively rapid progress through both houses, was passed without dissenting votes, and was approved by President Roosevelt March 16, 1906.

Mr. Adams, by great tact and patience, had achieved a notable legislative victory through the final passage of this important measure. He had long worked under a serious handicap of poor health, and on July 9, 1906, he passed away, to the great regret of all who understood his profound interest in agriculture and the farming people.

THE ADAMS ACT

The Adams Act appropriated $5,000 for the year ended June 30, 1906, an annual increase of this sum by $2,000 for five years, and thereafter $15,000 annually to the experiment stations organized under the Hatch Act in each State and Territory, "to be applied only to paying the necessary expenses of conducting original researches or experiments bearing directly on the agricultural industry of the United States." The Secretary of Agriculture was "charged with the proper administration of this law."

The details of this administration have been carried out by the Office of Experiment Stations. The stations were persuaded by the director of this office annually to submit their plans for work under this act to the Office of Experiment Stations in advance of payment of the Adams fund. These plans have taken the form of limited and specific projects and have been approved only when it has appeared that they involved original research. The Adams Act has therefore given the stations a substantial financial basis for carrying on research and in general has greatly strengthened them.

PROMOTION OF GRADUATE STUDY

Some leaders in the colleges perceived that something more than an ordinary undergraduate course with a bachelor's degree was required for the preparation of college teachers, investigators, and experts in various agricultural lines. Some graduate work was being offered in certain institutions, but as yet it was not well organized.

THE SUMMER GRADUATE SCHOOL

While Thomas F. Hunt, dean of the College of Agriculture and Domestic Science of Ohio State University, was attending the convention of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges at San Francisco, Calif., in July, 1899, it occurred to him that it would be a good plan to organize a graduate school of agriculture.

This proposition met with the approval of President W. O. Thompson, of the university, and on his recommendation the trustees in April, 1900, took action in favor of the establishment of such a school.