302 EXPEEIMENT STATION RECOED. 



A short review of Dr. Hilgard's career and its principal lines of 

 activity was given in these pages at the time of his retirement from 

 active service in 1909. In this the attempt was made to bring out 

 the prominent features of his varied service and the chief lines in 

 which his greatest accomplishments had been made. Since that time, 

 although laboratory facilities were open to him, his health had not 

 permitted very active participation in research and the contributions 

 from his pen had been small. With clear mind but waning physical 

 strength he gradually resigned his work to the new regime, realizing 

 that while unfinished plans remained, in an unusual degree his part 

 had been completed. 



From the facts of his life it is interesting to note that he was born at 

 Zweibruecken in Rheinish Bavaria January 5, 1833, and was brought 

 to this country by his parents when only three years old, the family 

 settling at Belleville, in southern Illinois. There young Ililgard 

 grew up, attended the public schools, and worked on his father's 

 farm. After graduation from the high school he was sent to the 

 University of Heidelberg, where he pursued studies in chemistry 

 and geology especially, and received his degree as doctor of philoso- 

 phy in 1853. 



Returning to this country he became chemist in 1855 of the newly 

 established Smithsonian Institution at Washington, but soon re- 

 signed to accept a position in Mississippi, and from 1858 to 1872 his 

 work was largely in the field of geology. In that period began his 

 writing upon soils — the maintenance of fertility, interpretation of 

 soil analysis, etc. He went to the University of Michigan in 1872 

 and was called from there to the University of California in 1875. 



The California College of Agriculture, though considered the real 

 nucleus of the state university, was then in an undeveloped state, and 

 upon Professor Hilgard fell the task of giving it form and plan, and 

 gradually building for it a confidence and support which made possi- 

 ble its later advancement to a position among the leading institu- 

 tions of its kind. As a recent writer has well said : " The results of 

 his labors are the warp of California's first half century of intel- 

 lectual and industrial life, and upon such enduring work as he 

 achieved will be spread the splendid fabric of our coming state 

 advancement and development." 



Outside of his university duties Dr. Hilgard found time for much 

 important work. He was in charge of the agricultural division of 

 the Northern Transcontinental Survey, lSSl-1883, and as chairman 

 of a commission appointed by the U. S. Commissioner of Agricul- 

 ture on the agriculture of the arid regions, he edited a report which 

 dealt with the climate and agricultural features and the agricultural 

 practice and needs of the arid regions of the Pacific slope. He con- 

 ducted an extensive investigation of the soils of the cotton-growing 



