No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 431 



cultural Society in the City of Philn(lel])liia in the year 1785. George 

 Washington and Benjamin Franklin were both members of this first 

 American Agricultural Society. It was tin's first American Agri 

 cultural Society that really causer! tlie development in Ponnsvlvania 

 of the Pennsylvania Agricultural Society, established in 18.51, if I 

 am not mistaken, and this later led to the Pennsylvania Board of 

 Agriculture, then called the State Board of Agriculture, and out of 

 the activities of this State Board of Agriculture grew the very effi- 

 cient Department of Agriculture which we have in our State today. 



It is probably entirely unnecessary, when speaking before a body 

 of this construction, for me to refer to the various branches of the 

 Department of Agriculture of our State. They are carrying on 

 many lines of agricultural endeavor in this State, and carrying them 

 on so well that it would almost be out of place, I was going to say, 

 for me to dwell very long upon this subject. I felt, however, that 

 I wished to refer to it because I wanted you, first of all, to realize 

 that the subject of Agricultural Education, in itself, to which I shall 

 very shortly come, is not as new as some people would think. I 

 want you to realize a little bit more fully perhaps than some of you 

 have, if that is possible in vsuch a talk as this, that that need was 

 deeply felt in those days and that the agricultural agencies which 

 we have today are possible because the agricultural leaders of a half 

 century, yes of a century ago, realized that need as we do today. I 

 will throw upon the screen a few slides showing some of the activities 

 of our own State Department of Agriculture. 



There are many other lines of activities carried on by this Depart- 

 ment that are just as much entitled to recognition as those I have 

 shown here tonight, but time forbids my touching upon them. It 

 may interest you to know that this State Board of Agriculture has 

 been responsible for many lines of agricultural development in this 

 State. It was this Pennsylvania Agricultural Society which later 

 became the State Board of Agriculture, founded in 1851, as I stated 

 before, that was realh' responsible for the founding of our State Col- 

 lege of Agriculture. In 1853, just two years after the founding of 

 the Pennsylvania Society of Agriculture, this Society recommended 

 that an agricultural school be established in the State. The matter 

 laid over until 1855, when the farmers' high school, as it was first 

 called, was established. From the institution, in 1861, there was 

 graduated a class of eleven students. This was probably the first 

 class graduated in this country from an institution that was purely 

 agricultural. My friends, there has been a marvelous development 

 since that day. The class of eleven in 1861 has grown until today 

 the enrollment in our splendid State College of Agriculture is some- 

 where between 3,500 and 4,000; the exact figures I do not have. It 

 shows the merit of the institution. In 1862, Congress passed what 

 is known as the Land Grant Act, by virtue of which each State re- 

 ceives certain grants of land, on the proceeds of the sale of which 

 money was available for the support of these institutions, in part, 

 provided the several states took advantage of the provisions of this 

 Act of Congress by passing acts which gave the College State support, 

 and the State has been committed ever since to this policy, of finan- 

 cially as well as morally and otherwise, supportinc: this State College 

 of ours. It is an obligation on the part of the State. 



