982 Agricultural Education in the United States. [Feb., 



SOME ASPECTS OF AGRICULTURAL 

 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

 OF AMERICA. 



L. K. Elmhirst, M.A. (Cantab.), B.Sc. (Cornell . 



Agriculture of all industries in the United States has been 

 from the earliest days the largest and the most important. The 

 rapid development of factory production and city life, dependent 

 upon a home-grown food supply, has of late raised problems in 

 American rural life which have compelled widespread attention. 

 The higher wages of the city and the demand for an increase of 

 food production during the War did not improve matters, since 

 slowly but surely the countryside was being sapped of its best 

 stock. The farmers' sons were moving into the cities and labour t 

 was almost impossible to obtain. In the words of the Director 

 of Agriculture for New York State : — " Chief among our rural 

 problems is the creation and the maintenance of an environment 

 on the farm and in the farm home such that a fair proportion of 

 intelligent and able American citizens will continue to earn 

 their livelihood from the land." 



Xew York State, with the conditions of which we shall deal in 

 this article., has probably made as much progress in dealing with 

 this problem as any other State in the Union. Except that its 

 summer is hotter than ours and its winter more severe, agricul- 

 tural practice is very similar to that in England. The size of 

 the average farm ranges between seventy and three hundred 

 acres. Maize silage takes the place of roots in dairying. The 

 large cities. Xew York, Buffalo, Rochester. Albany and Syracuse 

 demand an ever-increasing supply of fresh milk and vegetables, 

 and of butter, fruit and potatoes. Beef, mutton, pork, horse 

 flesh and grain can all be grown on a large scale and at less cost 

 in the West : cotton, sugar and tobacco in the South, and all 

 these can be shipped long distances without deterioration. 



Already in 1862 the necessity for technical training and scien- 

 tific study in the field of Agriculture was recognised at Washing- 

 ton, when the Morrill Act was passed by the Federal Government. 

 This Act provided funds and land for the establishment of State 

 Agricultural College,-. In 1865 Ezra Cornell founded the 

 University, named after him. at Ithaca in Xew York State, and 

 the State College of Agriculture was added to it some years later. 

 From the first, under the leadership of such men as Dean Roberts 

 and Dr. Liberty Hyde Bailey, the policy of this college was to 



