. The story of agriculture in the United States. o, the total number being 68. They are insome cases connected with the state university and inothers they are separate institutions. They have beena powerful means of bringing about the study of newmethods and of educating young men to apply thesemethods in actual farm work. The holding of farmers institutes was begun in NewEngland before the year 1870, and has continued fromyear to year extending throughout the country. Thusthe scientific knowledge of the colleges has been spread 286 AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES broadcast, and better method
. The story of agriculture in the United States. o, the total number being 68. They are insome cases connected with the state university and inothers they are separate institutions. They have beena powerful means of bringing about the study of newmethods and of educating young men to apply thesemethods in actual farm work. The holding of farmers institutes was begun in NewEngland before the year 1870, and has continued fromyear to year extending throughout the country. Thusthe scientific knowledge of the colleges has been spread 286 AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES broadcast, and better methods have been preached inthe ears of every farmer who was wilHng to hsten. In 1890 Congress passed a second Morrill Act. Itgradually added to the funds from which the state agri-cultural colleges are supported until the amount receivedyearly was $25,000 for each. Still later, in 1907, theannual amount donated to each college was increased to$50,000. Now, an agricultural college ought to do more thanmerely teach the knowledge that men already have. Wisconsin Agricultural College and Experiment Station about the work of farming. It should be, in addition,a place where new knowledge is constantly being dis-covered. This can only come about by conductingexperiments, and this our agricultural colleges have donefrom the very beginning. In some cases, the earlyagricultural societies encouraged experiments on a smallscale, and such work was carried on by the Departmentof Agriculture when that was first established (1862).But the first separate state agricultural experimentstation was that of Connecticut, in charge of Prof. W. 0. ERA OF SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE 287 Atwater (1875). Within a few years a number of statesfollowed this example. The greatest step in this direction was taken in 1887,when Congress passed the Hatch Act, appropriatingmoney for experiment stations in connection with thevarious agricultural colleges. These stations not only
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectagriculture, bookyear
