REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 101 



based have not been supplanted, although the mechanical devices 

 employed have been improved. This test made it possible to buy 

 and sell milk on an equitable basis, and thus revolutionized the dairy 

 business in the creamery as well as on the farm. If this practical 

 and scientific method had been established by other than experiment- 

 station effort it would have required large sums of money for royal- 

 ties to satisfy the patent rights; but Dr. Babcock, with the noble 

 conception of the disinterested scientific w^orker, gave it to the Nation 

 and the world. With achievements of this kind to their credit the 

 experiment stations can look back over their early history with pride 

 and gain renewed zeal and encouragement for the future. 



THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS. 



The faith of the people of the United States in agricultural edu- 

 cation is becoming each j^ear more apparent in the better support 

 given to the agricultural colleges, in the establishment of additional 

 agricultural courses in universities and colleges of private founda- 

 tion, in the increasing number of States giving financial aid to sec- 

 ondary instruction in agriculture, in the attention given to the 

 training of teachers of agriculture for secondary and elementary 

 schools, in the large attendance of students at all sorts of colleges 

 and schools in which agriculture is well taught, and in the great 

 popularity of certain forms of elementary instruction in agriculture, 

 such as children's gardens in cities, boys' corn clubs, girls' garden 

 and canning clubs, and other juvenile agricultural club work. 



According to a list published April 30, 1912, by the Office of Ex- 

 periment Stations and compared with a similar list published in May, 

 1910, the number of land-grant colleges giving instruction in agricul- 

 ture has increased from 57 to Gl and the number of privately endowed 

 colleges from 24 to 42. Columbia University has established short 

 courses and extension work in agriculture, and Syracuse University 

 has added colleges of agriculture and forestry. Practically all of 

 the State colleges for women in the South now maintain courses in 

 agriculture, giving attention particularly to gardening, floriculture, 

 and poultry husbandry. 



Among secondary schools there are now 78 special agricultural 

 schools, as compared with 58 in 1910, and 289 public high schools 

 receiving State aid for courses in agriculture, whereas in 1910 there 

 were 28. Minnesota alone is giving $125,000 a year to stimulate the 

 introduction of agriculture, home economics, and farm mechanics 

 into public high schools, ;>0 of tliese schools receiving $2,500 a year 

 each and 50 schools receiving $1,000 each. Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, 

 Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, 

 Texas, and Wisconsin are the other States that appropriate funds 

 for this purpose. 



