January 7, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



agricultural development of their respective 

 states. And what a variety of titles these 

 educators bear ! The old professors of agri- 

 culture, horticulture and botany have been 

 largely replaced by professors of agronomy, 

 dairy industry, animal husbandry, genit- 

 ics, enology, citrieulture, landscape garden- 

 ing, pomology, olericulture, forestry, bac- 

 teriology, plant pathology and a score or 

 so more. 



Department of Agriculture. — The second 

 great influence in the development of scien- 

 tific agriculture in this country was the 

 establishment by Act of Congress, in Febru- 

 ary, 1889, of a department of agriculture 

 at Washington, and the appointment of J. 

 M. Rusk as its first secretary in the Presi- 

 dent's cabinet. Since 1862, however, there 

 had been a commissioner of agriculture, and 

 there were already several bureaus or di- 

 visions. Even before this for years there 

 had been issued from the Patent Office re- 

 ports dealing with agricultural information. 

 To-day the department of agriculture com- 

 prises, besides various minor groups, bu- 

 reaus of weather, animal industry, plant 

 industry, chemistry, soils, entomology, bio- 

 logical survey, crop estimates, services of 

 forest and of states relations, and ofBees of 

 markets and rural organizations and of 

 public roads and rural engineering. To 

 carry on the work of the department, there 

 were in 1913 nearly 15,000 employees, and 

 the annual appropriation was $18,000,000. 



Agricultural Experiment Stations. — The 

 third factor in our agricultural develop- 

 ment was the establishment of the agricul- 

 tural experiment stations through the pas- 

 sage of the Hatch Act by Congress in 1886. 

 Even previous to this, there had existed 

 several state stations, that at New Haven, 

 Conn., established in July, 1877, being the 

 first. Each state originally received $15,000 

 a year from the government, but some years 

 ago this was increased by the Adams Act 



an additional $15,000, which goes to sup- 

 port the more strictly scientific work. At 

 present most of the stations also receive 

 state aid, which in some cases greatly ex- 

 ceeds that given by the government. For 

 instance, in 1913 the total revenue of the 

 fifty-seven stations in this country was over 

 $4,650,000, and in the case of two of these 

 it reached nearly half a million. 



Some idea of the number of investigators 

 employed in stations having no college afSl- 

 iation is shown by the Ohio station roll, with 

 64, the Geneva station with 37, and the 

 Connecticut station with 25. Of the sta- 

 tions connected with colleges, California 

 has a staff of 67 employed all or a part of 

 the time in station work, Illinois 88, Wis- 

 consin 84, Kansas 66, and Pennsylvania 49. 

 The literature already issued by the various 

 stations requires one hundred feet of li- 

 brary shelves to hold it, making by itself 

 a very respectable working library in agri- 

 culture. 



One of the important results of the es- 

 tablishment of experiment stations was the 

 stimulating effect on both the agricultural 

 colleges and the Department of Agricul- 

 ture. Up to that time the colleges, as a 

 rule, had not taught much agriculture be- 

 cause they had few students; and the de- 

 partment had not yet begun to do much in- 

 vestigational work. By furnishing posi- 

 tions for the agricultural colleges to fill, and 

 by bringing them into closer touch with the 

 farmers, the number of students has been 

 greatly increased and the standing of the 

 colleges much improved ; while the rivalry 

 in investigational work between the stations 

 and the department has been of mutual ad- 

 vantage. 



Agricultural Extension. — A fourth factor 

 that may greatly influence agriculture in 

 the future is the establishment of the agri- 

 cultural extension movement, through the 

 Smith-Lever bill, passed by Congress in 



