Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/365

Rh The so-called Hatch act gave a new and great impetus to the work of experiment stations in this country. It could not have been otherwise, for it made provision for an appropriation of $15,000 a year to each State or Territory that would accept the trust, to establish a station in connection with its agricultural college, or to aid such stations already established. All of the States, except Montana, Washington, and Idaho, have taken advantage of the act, as have also New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. Some have more than one, and some who have only one regular experiment station have organized one or more branch stations located in different sections of the State. If these branch stations be excluded, there are now fifty-three experiment stations in the United States; while, if they be counted, there are sixty-nine.

Congress saw fit to leave the government of the stations which it established to the various States in connection with their agricultural colleges, whose trustees generally have it in charge, and as a whole, or through properly authorized committees, engage specialists to carry on the work. The scientists thus engaged necessarily vary in their specialties with the lines of research which each particular station desires to undertake. The study of agriculture is a complex one, and there is scarcely a branch of science which is not called upon to take its part in the common advancement. A director is generally the first officer chosen. He is supposed to be a man well versed in the past literature of the subject, well known in his special branch of study, and of good executive ability. In the older stations this office is generally held by a chemist of long experience in agricultural experimentation. This is the case in the Massachusetts Station, where the work of Director Charles A. Goessmann has been of incalculable benefit to the agriculture of his State. This is also true of both Connecticut Stations, of the New York Station at Geneva, of the California Station, the Pennsylvania Station, the North Carolina Station, and others. At present, perhaps in the larger number of cases, the director's office is held by an experienced agriculturist, known for his ability to apply the results of previous scientific research to his particular branch, Besides a director, there are usually one or more chemists, an agriculturist, a horticulturist, and a botanist. Entomologists, veterinarians, meteorologists, biologists, microscopists, physicists, mycologists, viticulturists, geologists, etc., follow numerically in the order in which they are mentioned, and receive their appointment according to the several needs of the stations by which they are engaged. In all there are now four hundred and twenty-three persons employed in these stations, whose names are published as on the station staffs.

Although the experiment stations were left entirely independent of each other and any central head by the Hatch act, so that