46 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 10,00. 



While the principal object of the establishment of this sta- 

 tion was the maintenance of a fertilizer control, in the first 

 months of its existence lines of investigation were entered upon 

 which have /been followed by the Station from that time. 



Dr. Jordan was Director of the Station from 1885 to June 

 30, 1896, when he resigned to take the directorship of the New 

 York Experiment Station. Mr. James M. Bartlett was ap- 

 pointed assistant chemist at the establishment of the Station and 

 a year later Mr. Lucius H. Merrill was also appointed as assist- 

 ant chemist. Both of these gentlemen have been associated with 

 the Station continuously since their first appointment. Mr. 

 Gilbert M. Gowell was appointed superintendent of field and 

 feeding experiments and he still continues with the Station in 

 the department of stock breeding and poultry. 



THE REORGANIZATION OF THE STATION. 



The Maine Fertilizer Control and Agricultural Experiment 

 Station existed about two and a half years and issued twenty 

 bulletins and three reports, the former being published only in 

 the leading papers of the State and the later as a part of the 

 report of the Maine Board of Agriculture. Upon the passage 

 by Congress of what is known as the Hatch Act, establishing 

 agricultural experiment stations in every state, the Legislature 

 of 1887 repealed the. law of March 3, 1885, by an act which took 

 effect October 1, 1887. It was expected at the time this act was 

 passed, that by October first a station would be in operation 

 under the provisions of the national law. This did not prove 

 to be the case, owing to the failure of Congress to appropriate 

 money, and had not the College assumed the risk of advancing 

 the funds to pay the expenses of the Station, work' would have 

 ceased on the date in which the old station law stood repealed. 

 As it was, work was continued until January, 1888, when the 

 station force disbanded to await the action of Congress. It was 

 not until after the passage of the deficiency bill early in February, 

 1888, that funds became available for the payment of the expenses 

 of the year 1887-1888. Prior to this, the Maine Legislature of 

 1887 had accepted the provisions of the Hatch Act on the part 

 of the State, and at the meeting of the College Trustees in June, 



