402 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



will signed July 30, 1835, 200 acres of his farm in Roxbury and half 

 of the income of about $300,000 were bequeathed to Harvard College 

 on condition that there should be established on the farm "a course 

 of instruction in practical agriculture, in useful and ornamental 

 gardening, in botany, and in such other branches of natural science 

 as may tend to promote a knowledge of practical agriculture and the 

 various arts subservient thereto." Because of other conditions in 

 the will the organization of this work was not attempted until 1870, 

 ■when a considerable additional sum was granted to Harvard College 

 by the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture " for the 

 support of a laboratory and for experiments in agricultural chem- 

 istry to be conducted on the Bussey estate." 



Operations were begun in 1871 under the name of the Bussey In- 

 stitution, oifering undergraduate instruction as a school of agricul- 

 ture and horticulture, and giving considerable attention to experi- 

 mental work as well. In 1908 the scope of the institution was 

 changed to that of graduate instruction and research in applied 

 biology, the subjects so far taken up being economic entomology, 

 plant and animal genetics, and comparative pathology. 



Another will made at about the same period as the Bussey bequest, 

 and resembling it as regards the active interest manifested in agri- 

 cultural education by its maker many years before the establish- 

 ment of any American agricultural school or college, was made 

 public on the death of Mr. Oliver Smith, of Hatfield, Mass., in 1845. 

 This will provided for a number of educational and charitable enter- 

 prises, but among others for the establishment in Northampton, 

 Mass., of an agricultural school and " pattern " farm. The fund 

 set aside for this purpose was not made available until a period of 

 sixty years had elapsed, at which time it had accumulated to over 

 three hundred thousand dollars. A secondary institution, known as 

 Smith's Agricultural School, was opened to over one hundred stu- 

 dents in the fall of 1908, and has since been in operation, with 

 courses in agriculture and home economics as a leading feature of its 

 curriculmn. 



An actual experiment in agricultural education was instituted in 

 the winter of 1850-51 in the establishment of the Oakwood Agricul- 

 tural Institute at Lancaster, New York. Funds for this enterprise 

 were derived from the sale of two hundred shares of stock sub- 

 scribed for by five gentlemen from Buffalo. The school was opened 

 in April, 1851, using the buildings and farm of Judge Theodotus 

 Burrell, the originator and promoter of the plan, but in the following 

 winter financial reverses to the stockholders compelled the abandon- 

 ment of the enterprise. 



Three years later came the establishment of the New York State 

 Agricultural College at Ovid. This institution by 1856 had raised 



