Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station 427 



present Director of the Experiment Station was able to take up a 

 work well supported. The work done in the past has more than 

 justified the liberaHty of the State and is accepted as a promise of 

 continuintj generosity on the part of the State. 



THE EXTENSION IDEA 



When the Colleges of Agriculture seemed to be well organized 

 to teach their students and to do the research work necessary to 

 keep college teaching abreast of accumulating facts and principles, 

 it was keenly realized that the demands of agricultural people wer-i 

 not being met. In truth, the original purpose of the Act of 1862 

 was being accomplished only in part. Education was being pro- 

 moted ; high-grade research was in progress ; publications were 

 being sent to a limited number of people ; college and station men 

 were lecturing at farmers' institutes as opportunity offered; and. 

 on the whole, very valuable results were being accomplished. But 

 the colleges were not reaching their special constituency as effec- 

 tively as seemed desirable. Then came the agricultural extension 

 idea. This called for teaching by special methods wherever a 

 sufficient number of i)ersons might be found willing to receive 

 instruction ; it included the enlargement of the plan of giving 

 information and instruction by means of publications of a more 

 popular character than those previously issued by the colleges 

 and experiment stations ; it made necessary the organization of 

 special classes; the holding of meetings to discuss a few subjects 

 or even a single subject; and it led to a special adaptation of the 

 method of correspondence teaching. The special advantage of the 

 extension method is that it enables the College to reach a much 

 larger number of people than can be brought to its campus for the 

 more intensive instruction there given. 



THE EXPERIMENT STATION FARMS 

 The Experiment Station conducts much of its investigational 

 work at its branch stations or farms. These are situated in several 

 typical regions of the State and enable our workers to make studies 

 with special application to various climatic and soil conditions, [n 

 the Salt River Valley, near Mesa and Tempe, the Salt River Valley 

 Experiment Farm and the Date Orchard give excellent opportunitv 

 to study the problems of our most important irrigated area; at 

 Yuma, the Date Orchard and Horticultural Station and the new- 

 tract on the Yuma Mesa enable us to study citrus and other fruits, 

 as well as vegetables and a few farm crops, under conditions of 

 extreme heat and aridity ; at the Prescott and Cochise dry-farms 



