May 10, 1901.] 
tural subjects have proved of the highest 
benefit to agriculture. Professor Storer’s 
work, entitled ‘Chemistry in some of its 
Relations to Agriculture,’ the first edition 
of which was published in 1887, has had a 
marked effect upon agriculture in this coun- 
try. 
As early as 1846 Yale University, then 
called Yale College, appointed a professor 
of agricultural chemistry. This was John 
Pitkin Norton, who had devoted himself to 
the study of scientific agriculture both in 
this country and in Europe, especially with 
the celebrated Liebig. He brought to his 
position a ripe knowledge and wisely di- 
rected enthusiasm for agriculture, which 
he used with the greatest profit in its serv- 
ice. In 1855 Samuel William Johnson was 
appointed instructor in agricultural and 
analytical chemistry, and soon after full 
professor. Perhaps no one ever succeeded 
more fully in popularizing scientific agri- 
culture than Professor Johnson. His two 
books, ‘How Plants Feed’ and ‘How 
Plants Grow,’ the first editions of which 
were published in 1868 and 1870, respec- 
tively, have been kept abreast of modern 
progress in successive editions, and are still 
used as standard text-books and as author- 
ities on the practical relation of chemistry 
to agriculture. 
In the University of California, the work 
of Professor EK. W. Hilgard must be men- 
tioned as being of fundamental importatce 
in the development of the relation of chem- 
istry to agriculture in this country. Pro- 
fessor Hilgard, in his classical work on 
soils, has placed himself in the front rank 
of investigators on this subject, not only in 
this country, but in the world, and his 
achievements have been recognized both by 
his countrymen and by the most celebrated 
societies of Hurope. A knowledge of the 
soil and its relation to plant growth con- 
stitutes one of the fundamental principles 
of agriculture chemistry, and the researches 
SCIENCE. 
729 
of Professor Hilgard in this line have done 
much to place agriculture in the United 
States on a strictly scientific basis. 
At Cornell, even before her doors were 
open to students, a professorship in agricul- 
tural chemistry was established. Professor 
G. C. Caldwell was appointed to fill this 
position, and he has done so with dis- 
tinction to himself and to the University 
and with the greatest benefit to agriculture. 
One of the most important services in con- 
nection with Professor Caldwell’s labors at 
Cornell was the publication of his work 
on agricultural chemical analysis in 1869. 
At that time no work of a similar nature 
existed in the English language, and Pro- 
fessor Caldwell’s book was a veritable boon 
to students in agricultural science. 
This brief reference to the contributions 
of some of the earlier workers in agricul- 
tural chemical science in this country would 
not be complete without mention of the 
labors of Professor C. A. Goessmann, of the 
Massachusetts Agricultural College. 
It is not possible in the space assigned to 
this address to even name the more prom- 
inent later workers. 
A national epoch in agricultural educa- 
tion in this country began with the passage 
of the Morrill Act, in 1862, establishing 
and endowing colleges where agriculture 
should be one of the principal branches in 
which instruction is given. An additional 
impetus was given to this great work in 
1887 by the passage of the Hatch Act, 
establishing agricultural experiment sta- 
tions in the several States. The organiza- 
tion list of the agricultural colleges of the 
United States now shows the great number 
of men working in lines of agricultural 
chemistry. This most remarkable evolu- 
tion of agricultural education has taken 
place practically within the last thirty 
years, and there is no country which can 
now be compared with the United States in 
the munificence of the endowment for agri- 
