504 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



Recognizing that in Horticulture Pennsylvania had an important 

 industry requiring expert knowledge and skill, I looked around to see 

 what agencies The Pennsylvania State College had for di'veloping 

 it. I found that the institution had one very worthy but underpaid 

 Professor of Horticulture and an assistant who had been working 

 there for twelve jears for a thousand dollars a year. The numerous 

 letters of inquiries upon horticultural subjects, which are being re- 

 ceived constantly, have to be answered by hand. When I came to 

 inquire into the money required to maintain the instruction and 

 research, I found that it was so small it could scarcely be calculated. 

 There was no adequate agency for studying the fungous diseases 

 and insect enemies which form so large a part of the problems of 

 the horticulturist. Less than four thousand dollars was spent for 

 salaries and maintenance for instruction and investigation in horti- 

 culture and none at all for investigations in fungous diseases and 

 insect enemies. 



I at once prepared a budget for the Executive Committee in which 

 I recommended the establishment of two departments of horticul- 

 ture; one to deal with fruit raising and vegetable gardening, and 

 the other with flouriculture and landscape gardening, and that a 

 Department of Forestry be created. For these three departments 

 the budget sets aside for salaries and maintenance |15,200.00 for 

 the fiscal year lOOT-OS and .|1S,700.00 for the fiscal year lC()8-09. 



I expect the heads of all these departments to say that this is not 

 enough money. Already the head of one of them has served notice 

 upon me that unless more money is forthcoming for his depart- 

 ment than I have provided in the budget, that he will not accept 

 re-appointment. I think he is right, but it is so much more than 

 nothing that I had not dared to ask for more. The budget also 

 provides for the employment of a botanist who will give his whole 

 time to the study of fungous diseases injurious to orchard, garden 

 and field crop, and for a Professor of Zoology and Entomology who 

 shall give at least a part of his time to the investigation of economic 

 insects. Coupled with the recommendations concerning the budget 

 was a recommendation for a building for horticulture, forestry and 

 entomology at an estimated cost of 1100,000.00. This is to be a 

 building alDout the size of the new Dairy Building and to have suffi- 

 cient greenhouse space for investigations in horticulture, fungous 

 diseases, economic insects and for instruction in horticulture. If 

 students are to be taught horticulture in this climate between Octo- 

 ber 1st and May 1st in a real, vital way, and not merely academically, 

 then glass houses must be provided. 



T should, perhaps, pause here long enough to say that all these 

 recommendations have been most heartily endorsed by the Execu- 

 tive Committee of the Board of Trustees of The Pennsylvania State 

 College. 



I should also add that the lack of attention to horticulture upon 

 the part of the Experiment Station has been due to the settled policy 

 long ago established by the Board of Trustees to apply the limited 

 funds of the Station to investigations in Animal Nutrition and Dairy- 

 ing rather than trying to spread the activities of the Station over 

 a wider field than the funds would warrant. Conditions are now 

 such in this State that money should be forthcoming to study the 

 horticultural problems of the State. 



