viii Preface 



appropriating a specified amount of the public lands for 

 the benefit of colleges to be established in the several 

 states and territories, in which agriculture and the 

 mechanical arts would be taught along with the subjects 

 usually taught in the better grade of colleges. In the 

 course of time, all the states and territories established 

 colleges under the provisions of this Act. To fill the 

 professorships in the classics and sciences was an easy 

 matter. To fill the professorships in agriculture was a 

 problem. Agriculture had not been thought of as a field 

 of much learning. "What is agriculture," and "What 

 shall be taught as agriculture," were seriously discussed. 

 It was soon discovered that while agriculture as an 

 industry was old, little had been done to develop and 

 organize the body of scientific facts bearing on the 

 country's greatest industry. Something else was needed, 

 agricultural investigation. 



Several states established agricultural experiment 

 stations in connection with their colleges, but in 1887 

 Congress passed a bill authorizing the organization of 

 an experiment station in connection with each of the 

 agricultural colleges. These institutions have been 

 studying agricultural problems for only a little more 

 than a quarter of a century, and in so short a time have 

 discovered enough facts, and arranged these facts, so 

 that we now have a science called agricultural science. 



The development -of agricultural teaching has kept 

 pace with the development of our knowledge of the 

 subject. The teaching of agriculture is no longer con- 

 fined to the colleges. The discoveries and ideas brought 

 out by the investigations are too important to all the 

 country not to be more generally taught. While only 

 one-third of the population live in the country, approxi- 



