78 



PARLIAMENTARY PUBLICATIONS. 



[June 1895 



^'^^ PAKLIAMENTARY PUBLICATIONS. V 



Report on the Agricidtwml Experiment Stations and Agri- 

 cultural Colleges of the United States of Amerio£i. 

 [C.-7699.] Price M 



In view of the interest attaching to the formation and 

 development of stations for the conduct of agricultural experi- 

 ments, whether by way of illustration of results already known 

 to scientific observers or by way of direct and original research, 

 it has been thought expedient to issue as a Parliamentary paper, 

 under the above title, a report by Major Craigie to the President 

 of the Board of Agriculture, in which a variety of notes made 

 during a visit to some of the experimental stations and 

 agricultural colleges in the United States of America are 

 presented in such a form as to give a general view of the 

 educational and experimental work now being undertaken in 

 that country for the benefit of agriculture. 



The Report itself is followed by a' series of Appendices in 

 which are embodied, for reference, the complete text of three 

 Acts of the Federal Legislature indicating the attitude of the 

 American Congress to technical, including agricultural education, 

 and the several steps taken to develop the collegiate instruction 

 and experimental work. * The earliest Act quoted is that known 

 as the Morrill Act of 1862, whereby a large area of public lands was 

 assigned to the seyeral states and territories of the Union for the 

 purpose of providing colleges " for the benefit of agriculture and 

 the mechanic arts." The Morrill Act was followed by the Hatch 

 Act of 1887, which established, in connection with these colleges, 

 the agricultural experimental stations to which attention is 

 mainly directed in this volume. These stations were by the 

 last quoted Act endowed out of the Federal Treasury with a 

 special and direct annual appropriation to each State of 

 ^15,000 (about 3,000^.). Still more recently the agricultural 

 colleges received further endowments by a later Supplementary 

 Act passed in 1890. 



It would appear from this Report that at the time of Major 

 Craigie's visit upwards of three score Collegiate Institutions were 

 engaged wholly or partly in agricultural teaching, while 54 

 district Experiment Stations were accounted for, of which 48 

 were qualified to receive the Federal Grant for maintenance, a 

 few others relying on State as distinct from Federal funds for 

 their support. 



Detailed accounts are given of the educational arrangements 

 at the University of Cornell, in the State of New York, and 

 of those at the State University of Wisconsin at Madison, and 

 descriptions supplied of the work and equipment of the typical 



