THE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION 



in 

 NEW HAMPSHIRE 



Annual Report of Director M. Gale Eastman for the Year 1940 



HE foundation of progressive agriculture is not likely to be di- 

 vorced from research. America had a great educational idea 

 when it evolved a plan which should make classroom training availa- 

 ble to those who labored and lived on the land. Evidence of such 

 thinking was emphasized by the Congress when it passed the Land- 

 Grant College act in 1862. The act was the product of an attitude that 

 farmers were worth educating, or that a man whose business was to 

 be farming had need of some mental training that could be promoted 

 in the classroom. This well-conceived child of education came near 

 being still-born, and then struggled weakly for lack of proper nour- 

 ishment during at least twenty-five years of infancy and adolescence. 

 It gained strength and ability only after research came to the rescue 

 in providing proper sustenance. For such further help the people 

 were again indebted to the Congress and its vote of 1887 which 

 established the Hatch act, giving each state $15,000 for research in 

 agriculture. Soon, some facts had been carefully gathered, tabulated, 

 and described. Teachers had something to teach ; education discov- 

 ered its base ; a foundation had been provided on which to build agri- 

 cultural science. 



Down through the ages, since evolution through chance or di- 

 rection had sufficiently differentiated one animal from another so 

 that man had somewhere, somehow made himself known, there was 

 doubtless an ebb and flow of food and famine, — sometimes an im- 

 provement as a result of man's new techniques, and just as often a 

 reversal due to the vicissitudes of nature. Man became proficient 

 early in subduing or eluding his enemies. He found or fashioned 

 other shelter as soon as he could exist without the protection of a 

 cave. Thereupon he could hunt for animals, roots, and natural fruits 

 more widely. He domesticated animals to his use and found pasture 

 for their sustenance. Much later he corralled his animals, housed 

 them against inclement weather, planted crops, and did less wander- 

 ing. Then, he had the experience of learning that other animals, as 

 well as man, competed with him for food and that he must relin- 

 quish his appetite for animal flesh and animal products in favor of 

 nourishing his family with vegetation. He Avas often, indeed usually, 

 hungry; too hungry to thrive. The competition was keen. Human- 

 ity's upward climb for prestige in numbers within the clan or the 

 kingdom or the region was slow and uncertain. Disaster stalked 

 ever at his elbow in devastating, unpredictable diseases often born 

 in weakness of body resulting from too many mouths to feed from 

 poor harvests. 



Within the span of history, man's only source of increasing food 

 supplies seemed to lie in discovery of new countries and colonization. 



