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the establishment of experiment stations. There is only one man connected with 
our association who really was in it from the very beginning and who knows it- his- 
tory thoroughly — that is President Atherton. It seems to me thai we ought, if pos- 
sible, to have such a paper as that on file. 1 therefore move that the secretary of 
the association be instructed to write to President Atherton asking him to eontribute 
such a paper to be presented at our next annual convention. 
The motion, being duly seconded, was agreed to. 
Illness of ex-President B. F. Koons. 
The chairman of the executive committee, H. C. White, read a letter from ex-Pres- 
ident Koons, of Connecticut, stating his inability on account of illness to attend the 
sessions of the convention, and offered the following resolution, which was adopted: 
Resolved, That this association extend to ex-President B. F. Koons, a former mem- 
ber of this association, and one who still retains our most cordial friendship, our sin- 
cere sympathy in his illness, and express the hope and prayer that he may have a 
speedy recovery. 
Methods of Teaching Agriculture. 
A. C. True, of the Office of Experiment Stations. Before reading the formal report 
of the committee, I desire on their behalf to call attention to one or two matters in 
the line of their work. During the past year, as the outcome of suggestions made by 
the committee, the Office of Experiment Stations has completed and published a 
bulletin (No. 127) entitled "Instruction in Agronomy at Some Agricultural Col- 
leges." This document has been distributed, and some of you, at least, may have 
already seen it. That bulletin has met with a very favorable reception, which has 
encouraged the committee to request that a similar bulletin be prepared on Zoo- 
techny, and the Office of Experiment Stations hopes to undertake that work at an 
early day. 
The committee has also observed with very great interest the development of a 
definite movement to establish courses in agriculture and mechanics in the agricul- 
tural colleges, and to provide adequate equipment in the way of buildings and appa- 
ratus for such courses. We hope soon to see this movement so far developed that 
our colleges will have systematic and thorough courses of instruction along different 
branches of rural engineering. 
Coming now to the report proper, the committee decided this year to present to 
the association a brief discussion of the relation of what are commonly called the 
natural sciences to agriculture in a four years' college course. 
The more definite formulation of courses of instruction in agriculture, the division 
of these courses according to the several branches of the science of agriculture, and 
the consequent specialization of the courses due to the employment of an increased 
force of experts in various agricultural subjects, have already led to a considerable 
reorganization of faculties and courses in our agricultural colleges. This movement 
is continuing and will further develop with the increase of the resources and equip- 
ment of the agricultural departments of these institutions. One effect of this move- 
ment has been to change the relation of the natural sciences to agriculture in the 
scheme of instruction in the agricultural colleges. As long as agriculture ..as taught 
almost wholly on a practical basis and without much regard to its pedagogical formu- 
lation the teachers of the natural sciences were called upon not only to develop the 
relations of these sciences to agriculture in their courses of instruction, but to give 
instruction in strictly agricultural subjects, and this was done to a considerable 
extent, especially in chemistry and botany. Out of this grew a series of text-books 
and manuals in which the general principles of these sciences were more or less 
extensively combined with statements of their relations to the theory and practice 
of agriculture. Thus we have books on agricultural chemistry, agricultural botany, 
agricultural physics, etc. The preparation of such books was a very useful work. 
They helped to turn the attention of scientists to the importance of the problems of 
agriculture and thus led to the further investigation of these problems; they brought 
together many facts and principles out of which in large measure the science of 
