STATE EXPEEIMENT STATION 199 



sented, he refused to participate in the establishment 

 of an experiment station as a private enterprise. The 

 project, however, did not lack supporters, and in the 

 spring of 1875 the Legislature, through the passage 

 of the follomng resolution, secured to Connecticut the 

 honor of establishing upon her soil the first agricul- 

 tural experiment station in America : 



To Promote Agricultural Interests. 



Whereas, the Trustees of the University at ]\Iiddletown 

 tender the free use of ample laboratories and other facilities 

 for establishing and carrying on an Experiment Station, for 

 the general benefit and improvement of Agriculture and 

 kindred interests of the State of Connecticut: be it 



Resolved by this Assembly: Section I. That the sum of 

 seven hundred dollars per quarter for two years, is hereby 

 appropriated to the University located at Middletown, ^liddle- 

 sex County, to be used in employing competent scientific men 

 to carry on the appropriate work of an Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station; ... 



An American agricultural experiment station in 

 Connecticut was a cherished vision for the fulfilment 

 of which Professor Johnson had long worked ; at first 

 in cooperation ^vith the Agricultural Society, in whose 

 meetings he had introduced the idea; later in official 

 connection with the State Board of Agriculture, 

 founded by a group of agriculturists who counted him 

 as their associate and their leader in scientific thought. 

 The result of these many years of persistent endeavor 

 was his identification with this project in the mind of 

 the public — he had come to be generally regarded as 

 the man best fitted to guide agitation for the securing 

 of a station in this country and to establish and develop 



