1900 (31 Stat. L., 191, 199), which authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to establish an experiment station, erect buildings, and conduct the work after the manner of the state stations. The station was established at Honolulu, and its early studies included investigation of soils, insect and fungus pests, and the development of minor agricultural industries suitable to the territory.

The station directed its efforts toward a greater diversification of agriculture, and by 1923 especial care had been taken to apply the diversification to the preservation and utilization of food products as well as to the production of them. This was rendered feasible by the development of demonstration and extension work.

The Porto Rico Station. Conforming to the recommendations of the Director of the Office, Congress, in the appropriation act of March 2, 1901 (31 Stat. L., 922, 925), authorized the Secretary of Agriculture "to establish and maintain an agricultural experiment station in Porto Rico." After a survey of the island, the station was located at San Juan. Subsequently about two hundred acres were purchased near Mayaguez, and the early experiments involved about one hundred garden and field crops, both tropical and temperate. Many studies were made of fertilizers to find a means of enriching the impoverished soil. Popular publications were issued in the Spanish language for the benefit of the native farmers, and extension work was carried on in coöperation with special teachers of agriculture.

Another early study was demanded in relation to animal indus try, Porto Rico being an extensive stock-raising country. In 1917 the station began to operate a dipping tank for the eradication of cattle ticks, and progress is being made toward the development of dairy industries.

The Guam Station. Congress authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to establish and maintain an experiment station on the Island of Guam by the agricultural appropriation act of March 23, 1908 (35 Stat. L., 251, 266). Several years before this time, however, a garden attached to the governor's house had been utilized in continued efforts to improve the exceedingly primitive agriculture of the island, for the benefit of the 10,000 inhabitants.

After a preliminary survey of the island, a tract of thirty-two acres of private land was purchased for the station, and irrigation facilities provided. The brief history of the work of this station

St. Croix that had been established The former director was continued f station. He was given additional sta to a small extent, and the work progr lines as when under the Danish régime the islands of St. Thomas and St. John Administration of the Graduate Sch the several state experiment stations h Hatch Act for a decade, the materials agriculture had developed so rapidly students of the science had not kept up this situation, a graduate school of a 1902, with the Director of the Office dean. Other faculty members include of Agriculture, professors in the agri experts from foreign countries. The summer weeks duration and was hel under the coöperative patronage of th and later of the Association of Americ Experiment Stations. Subsequent sess universities and colleges.

The studies, which were intended f and graduate students in the agricultur

in the Department of Agriculture, included advanced topics in agronomy, zootechny, the breeding of plants and animals, agricultural economics, sociology, methods of teaching, and research. Special attention was given to the organization of agricultural education in the colleges and secondary schools, and to problems connected with farmers' institutes and various forms of university extension work. In view of its national character and of its close relation to the success of the colleges that had been endowed by the national government, the Director recommended that Congress make an appropriation for the maintenance of this graduate school, but after about a dozen of the state universities had developed regular three-year post-graduate courses leading to the doctor's degree in agricultural science, the summer graduate school was discontinued, and the relations of the Office to the advanced studies in agriculture were thereafter confined almost exclusively to the university graduate schools and scientific institutions.

Relations to Agricultural Instruction in the Elementary and High Schools. Until 1900 the Office of Experiment Stations had little relationship to the formal teaching of elementary agriculture excepting its mere official encouragement. This was because elementary instruction in American agriculture, in its broader aspects, followed rather than preceded the evolution of state experiment stations and of the collegiate studies. In 1747 Benjamin Franklin proposed that practical agriculture be taught to the youth of Pennsylvania—an idea that found practical realization in Moor's Indian School out of which evolved Dartmouth College—and in 1824 Daniel Adams published "The Agricultural Reader designed for the use of Schools; " yet as late as 1895, not a single American high school of the present day order was giving instruction in agriculture. Between 1820 and 1850, many secondary schools taught agriculture, but the movement generally died out with the establishment of the colleges of agriculture. In 1889, the University of Minnesota established a school of agriculture in connection with its college of agriculture, a plan which was emulated by the University of Nebraska in 1896, and later by about two-thirds of the states, thus establishing direct relationship with the Office of Experiment Stations. A contemporaneous development was the state system of agricultural secondary schools which was established by Alabama in

HISTORY

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1889, one school being located in each of its nine congressional districts, and each maintaining a branch experiment station under the supervision of the State College of Agriculture."

In 1897 the Director of the Office of Experiment Stations observed in his annual report that many educators had endorsed a plan for the teaching of agriculture in common schools, and that the College of Agriculture of Cornell University had received a special state appropriation to lead a movement for the introduction of nature study in the New York rural schools. This idea quickly spread to other states, and during the succeeding years the Director attempted to encourage the movement. Attention was given to the growth in the number of public and private secondary schools that were giving agricultural instruction. There were the Baron de Hirsch School in New Jersey and the National Farm School in Pennsylvania, which had been organized on the European plan for training city boys in practical agriculture. The secondary courses in agriculture at the George School in Pennsylvania and the California Polytechnical School likewise received official notice.

The consolidation of the rural district schools into one well organized modern central institution had resulted in such improved educational conditions in many of the western states that it became feasible to introduce courses in elementary agriculture for the benefit of farmers' sons, but the greatest handicap was the need of teachable literature. Consequently the Office of Experiment Stations early began to aid these improved schools in this regard.

Allied to this movement was the garden movement in the city schools, which was likewise encouraged by the Office. The close relationship of the Office to these growing developments was inevitable, and in 1903 a special agent of the Office of Experiment Stations was appointed to coöperate with local authorities in the advancement of the cause. In 1906 thirty states were promoting the instruction of agriculture in the public schools. This presented a further opportunity for the Office to work out plans for graded nature studies and elementary agriculture for use in those schools. Congress made the first annual appropriation for the investigation of the organization and progress of the agricultural schools in

Cf. Barrow's, Development of agricultural instruction in secondary schools, Bureau of Education, Bulletin, No. 85; and Dabney, Agricultural education, in Butler's Monograph on education in the United States, No. 12.

the states by the act of June 30, 1906 (34 Stat. L., 669, 693). This was followed by a wide-spread development of agricultural instruction in the public high schools as well as in the common schools. Virginia made a specific appropriation in 1908 for the teaching of agriculture in certain public high schools, and the example was followed by other states. Some high schools proceeded with the courses without state aid. By 1911 agricultural courses were being given in two thousand public secondary schools. Some of them had systems of instruction and community activities. Their community work included vegetable shows and field demonstrations, seed and milk testing, studies of building plans and of farm machinery, and winter lecture courses for men. For women, afternoon and evening meetings at the school were organized, and also house-to-house meetings. For young people, short courses in agriculture and home economics were developed, as well as literary societies and boys' and girls' study clubs. Field days for rural development, including Arbor Day observances, were stimulated. In some cases the high schools coöperated with the state colleges in the conduct of demonstration work in the agricultural trains or movable schools.

Following its precedent of 1906, Congress continued to grant annual appropriations for the investigation of, and report upon agricultural schools in the several States and Territories, and upon similar organizations in foreign countries, with special suggestions of plans and methods for making such organizations more effective for the dissemination" of the results of productive scholarship of governmental agricultural agencies. Pursuant to these directions, investigations were made of various institutions and American students of agriculture were furnished with some of the scientific data that constantly was being accumulated by the national and state departments of agriculture, the universities and experiment stations, and by the foreign institutions. The schools looked to the national government for advice concerning teachers and the uses of materials and sources, plans for courses of study, equipment, methods of instruction, and the relation of this work to the practical problems involved in agricultural production and to the practical development of home and social life of rural communities. Studies were made of American and foreign schools in which agriculture is taught, and collections were made of school cata