OUR AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 351 



The so-called Hatch act gave a new and great impetus to the 

 work of experiment stations in this country. It could not have 

 been otherwise, for it made provision for an appropriation of $15,- 

 000 a year to each State or Territory that would accept the trust, 

 to establish a station in connection with its agricultural college, or 

 to aid such stations already established. All of the States, except 

 Montana, Washington, and Idaho, have taken advantage of the 

 act, as have also New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. Some have 

 more than one, and some who have only one regular experiment 

 station have organized one or more branch stations located in 

 different sections of the State. If these branch stations be ex- 

 cluded, there are now fifty-three experiment stations in the United 

 States ; while, if they be counted, there are sixty-nine. 



Congress saw fit to leave the government of the stations which 

 it established to the various States in connection with their agri- 

 cultural colleges, whose trustees generally have it in charge, and as 

 a whole, or through properly authorized committees, engage spe- 

 cialists to carry on the work. The scientists thus engaged neces- 

 sarily vary in their specialties with the lines of research which 

 each particular station desires to undertake. The study of agri- 

 culture is a complex one, and there is scarcely a branch of science 

 which is not called upon to take its part in the common advance- 

 ment. A director is generally the first officer chosen. He is sup- 

 posed to be a man well versed in the past literature of the subject, 

 well known in his special branch of study, and of good executive 

 ability. In the older stations this office is generally held by a 

 chemist of long experience in agricultural experimentation. This 

 is the case in the Massachusetts Station, where the work of Direct- 

 or Charles A. Goessmann has been of incalculable benefit to the 

 agriculture of his State. This is also true of both Connecticut 

 Stations, of the New York Station at Geneva, of the California 

 Station, the Pennsylvania Station, the North Carolina Station, and 

 others. At present, perhaps in the larger number of cases, the 

 director's office is held by an experienced agriculturist, known for 

 his ability to apply the results of previous scientific research to 

 his particular branch, Besides a director, there are usually one or 

 more chemists, an agriculturist, a horticulturist, and a botanist. 

 Entomologists, veterinarians, meteorologists, biologists, micro- 

 scopists, physicists, mycologists, viticulturists, geologists, etc., 

 follow numerically in the order in which they are mentioned, and 

 receive their appointment according to the several needs of the 

 stations by which they are engaged. In all there are now four 

 hundred and twenty-three persons employed in these stations, 

 whose names are published as on the station staffs. 



Although the experiment stations were left entirely independ- 

 ent of each other and any central head by the Hatch act, so that 



