HOME ECONOMICS AND EDUCATION 685 



South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington. Separate 

 institutions of this class for colored students (including depart- 

 ments of universities located apart from the other colleges of those 

 universities) are maintained in all of the southern States. 



The state appropriations for the maintenance of agricultural 

 colleges, the construction of buildings, and the purchase of equip- 

 ment are growing larger year by year. Several of the biennial state 

 appropriations for these institutions have approached or passed the 

 half-million mark, notably in Washington, $487,256; Pennsyl- 

 vania, $526,000, and Kansas, $671,500. There were other large ap- 

 propriations for the colleges, among which may be mentioned $64,- 

 900 for the Arkansas University and Station; $119,000 for the 

 Colorado College and Station; $105,000 for the Georgia College; 

 $165,300 for the Montana College and Station; $202,100 for the 

 Utah College and Station, and $175,000 for the New York College 

 of Agriculture for one year. The legislature of Tennessee has passed 

 a bill giving 25 per cent of the State's revenue for education. (Ex. 

 S. Circ. 106, 1911.) 



Experiment Stations. The society organized in South Caro- 

 lina in 1785 had among its objects the establishment of an experi- 

 ment farm. President Washington, who was a member of the first 

 society for promoting agriculture organized in the United States, 

 in pleading for the establishment of a national board of agricul- 

 ture in his annual message to Congress in 1796, says that one of the 

 functions of such a board is "to encourage and assist a spirit of dis- 

 covery and improvement by stimulating to enterprise and experi- 

 ment." 



In 1849 the New York Agricultural Society established at Al- 

 bany a chemical laboratory for the analysis of soils, manures, etc., 

 and an elaborate examination of maize was made there by Dr. Salis- 

 bury. In 1855 a special agent was employed by the Patent Office 

 to investigate and report upon the habite of insects injurious and 

 beneficial to vegetation, especially those infesting the cotton plant. 

 After the establishment of the Department of Agriculture in 1862, 

 as a branch of the Government distinct from the Patent Office, the 

 land on which its buildings now stand was for several years chiefly 

 used as an experiment farm. 



The act establishing an agricultural college which was passed 

 by the legislature of Maryland in 1856 made it a duty of the board 

 of trustees of the institution to conduct on the college farm a series 

 of experiments upon the cultivation of cereal and other plants 

 adapted to the latitude and climate of the State. 



In 1870 a school of agriculure and horticulture was established 

 in connection with Harvard College in accordance with the pro- 

 visions of the will of Mr. Benjamin Bussey, of Roxbury, Mass. 

 This school was named the Bussey Institution. The same year 

 Harvard College received from the Massachusetts Society for Pro- 

 moting Agriculture a considerable sum for the support of a labora- 

 tory and for experiments in agricultural chemistry to be conducted 

 on the Bussey estate. Investigations were begun in this laboratory; 



