160 REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF PIORTICULTURE. 



petual fund, the accruing revenue to be devoted to the maintenance of at 

 least one college in each state, whose leading objects shall be to teach such 

 branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts. 



In 1887 congress passed what is known as the "Hatch Act Establishing 

 Experiment Stations,'' and appropriating for each $15,000 annually, to pro- 

 mote scientific investigation and experiment respecting the principles and 

 application of agricultural science. In 1890 the Morrill act made further 

 liberal appropriation for the more complete endowment of agricultural 

 colleges, and the respective states from time to time extended aid to these 

 schools. 



We are informed by Doctor True, in charge of the office of experiment 

 stations at Washington, that we now have sixty-four agricultural colleges, 

 with resources amounting to $53,500,000, and that $10,000,000 had been ex- 

 pended on our experiment stations. 



Have the objects contemplated by congress in making these liberal appro- 

 priations, the wisdom of which is beyond question, so far as agricultural 

 education is concerned, been realized in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, 

 the three states represented in this association? Some time since it was my 

 pleasure to attend chapel exercises at one of these colleges, and after song, 

 scripture reading and prayer, a visiting graduate was called upon to address 

 the assembled students. I gathered from his remarks that he was taking a 

 law course, and the thought came to me, are these schools breeding lawyers 

 and professional men instead of farmers and fruitgrowers'? And since that 

 morning that thought has come to me again and again, and quite recently I 

 addressed a note to one or more of the professors at Corvallis, Pullman, and 

 Moscow, requesting to know how many of the graduates were following- 

 husbandry, and how many at the present time were enrolled in agricultural 

 courses. I thank these gentlemen for prompt and courteous acknowledg- 

 ments, but they disclosed a condition of affairs most discouraging to every 

 man who wants to see the science of agriculture exalted in our schools com- 

 mensurate with the supreme importance that it bears in the economy of the 

 world. In the University of Idaho there were three students in agriculture 

 in the class of 1898, six in 1899 ; students enrolled, one hundred and eighty- 

 three. Washington Agricultural College graduated twenty-seven students 

 up to last year — two in agriculture, one in hoi^ticulture. In the senior class 

 for 1899 not one student in agriculture. Of the three hundred and twenty- 

 five students enrolled in this institution last December, only fifteen in agri- 

 cultural and horticultural courses. There were thirty-two or thirty-three 

 members in the class of 1898 at Corvallis, and four or five in agriculture. 

 Class of 1899, thirty-four members, six in agricultural courses. Total enroll- 

 ment, three hundred and fifty; girls, one hundred and thirty-one ; boys, two 

 hundred and ninety-nine. In agricultural courses all told, forty-five or forty- 

 six. In these three "farmers' schools," of eight hundred and seventy-one 

 students enrolled, only fifty-four — less than six and one-half per cent, in agri- 

 culture and horticulture. Fellow horticulturist, are you satisfied with this 

 exhibit? If not, where lies the fault and where is the remedy? 



There is nothing farther from my thought than to deprecate the value of 

 these schools. I acknowledge my personal indebtedness for the valuable in- 

 vestigation of the experiment stations. I thoroughly appreciate the short 

 courses in agriculture, and yet more the educational work that is being done 

 at farmers' and fruitgrowers' institutes throughout the country. I admit 

 that the usefulness of these schools has been lessened from the fact that 

 from time to time they have been butt'eted by political partisanship, that 

 too many of their regents have had no direct interest in the soil or me- 

 chanic arts and too many of their presidents and officers have no special 

 training along lines that afford knowledge and bring them in sympathy with 

 industrial arts. But let us not hide behind the shortcomings of our tech- 

 nical schools, for I am convinced that the greater fault lies in our own apathy 

 and indifference to the subject of scientific agriculture. Why do our sons 

 drift into every occupation save that of the farm ? Is it because the old 



