Page:Kansas A Cyclopedia of State History vol 1.djvu/36

 June 30, 1908, and an annual increase of the amount of such appropriation thereafter for four years by an additional sum of $5,000 over the preceding year, and the annual sum to be paid thereafter to each state and territory shall be $50,000 to be applied only for the purposes of the agricultural colleges as defined and limited in the act of Congress approved Aug. 30, 1890, provided, that said colleges may use a portion of this money for providing courses for the special preparation of instructors for teaching the elements of agriculture and the mechanic arts.

A valuable adjunct to the Agricultural College is the Experiment Station. Some experiment work in forest planting was commenced by the college as early as 1868. In 1874 experiments in the cultivation of tame grasses were started by Prof. Shelton. These were followed by experiments in subsoiling, feeding, etc., but all work was carried on in a small way at the expense of the college until Congress passed the Hatch bill in March, 1887, providing for the organization of a station for experiments along agricultural lines in each state. This station was located at the Agricultural College by the state legislature and the management vested in a council consisting of the president, the professors of agriculture, horticulture and entomology, chemistry, botany, and veterinary science. The Hatch bill provided for an annual Congressional appropriation of $15,000 for experimental work.

In 1906, another appropriation was made for the Experiment Station, under what is known as the Adams act, which provided “for the more complete endowment and maintenance of the agricultural experiment stations,” a sum beginning with $5,000, and increasing each year by $2,000 over the preceding year for five years, after which time the annual appropriation is to be $15,000, “to be applied to paying the necessary expenses of conducting original researches or experiments bearing directly on the agricultural industry of the United States, having due regard to the varying conditions and needs of the respective states and territories.” Under the Adams act only such experiments may be entered upon as have first been approved by the office of experiment stations of the United States department of agriculture. In 1908, the legislature of Kansas appropriated $15,000 for further support of the Experiment Station.

The work of the station is published in bulletin form, of which there are three classes: The first are purely scientific, the second are simplified to meet the intelligence of the average reader and include all other bulletins in which a “brief, condensed and popular presentation is made of data which call for immediate application and cannot await publication in the regular bulletin series.” In addition to these the station publishes a series of circulars of useful information not necessarily new or original. The station has issued 167 bulletins, 183 press bulletins and 8 circulars.

While the main division of the station is at Manhattan it has branches at Fort Hayes, Garden City, Ogallah and Dodge City. The land at Fort Hays is of the high rolling prairie variety and was originally part