Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1888-02-23
Tor Tho .sEyening CAPITAL
AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT
STATION.

has before il two bills for the estao-
lishment of the Agricultural Expert
ment Station, one for its location at
ST. Johns College at Annapolis, the
other to p1aceit under the control
Of the State Agricultural College
The fitness Of either College to
control this Experiment Station,
can be left to those who viii care to
examine into their present cordi-
ton or past history, or who may de-
sire to meet the wishes of the Agri-
cultural societies generally OF the
State, and decide what school shall
not have it.
| do not think the friends of tie
Agricultural College have based
their claims at any time upon any
of the foregoing issues. Surely they
did not urge them before the COM
mittee on Agriculture at one of its
meetings recently, as arguments
why the Agricultural College should
have charge of the station, but in
fact they seemed to rely solely on an
opinion given by the Comptroller of
the Treasury who had been invoked
to construe the provisions of what is
known as the ''Hatch" bill, the act
establishing Experiment Stations in
the various States.
With all due respect for the author
quoted, do not think | can err
very much in my belief when l &C
cept what the Supreme Court of
the United States once said of that
functionary, Gin constituting the law
he made new one" And one of
the advocates of the measure to put
the station under the control of the
Agricultural College, when before
the committee on Agriculture,
would seem more disiAterested were
it not generally believed that his
prospective presidency of that Col
lege was contingent upon its getting
control of that Station.
The Agricultural school insists
that it is the only one in the State
that can have charge of the Station,
that the State cannot establish an
Experiment Station at any College
other than it; that the State before
it can give the appropriation to an
Experiment Station, unless under
the control of said College, must
have established it before the
"Hatch" bill was passed. With
the knowledge Of what other States
have done in this regerd, and after
reading the following section of the
Act, | believe such claims unten-
able.
Section 8 of that bill reads as fol-
lows:-"That in States having col
leges entitled under this section to
benefits Of this act and having also
experiment stations established by
law separate from said Colleges,
su ch States shall be authorized to
apply such benefits to experiments
at stations so established by such.
states; and in case any State shall
have established under the provis-
ions of said act of July second afore-
said, an agricultural department. as
experimental station, in connection
with any university, college or in.
stitution not distinctively an agri-
cultural college or school. and such
State shall have established or shall
hereafter establish a separate agri-
cultural college or school which shall
haze connected MereUiM an erperi-
mental farm or station, the leglsla-
ture of such State may apply in
whole or in part the appropriation
by this act made, to such separate
agricultural college, or Scohool, and
no legislature shall by contract ex-
press or implied disable itself from
so doing"
Certainly no one needs the decis-
ion of the Comptroller of the Treas
ury to arrive at the conclusion that
the State can place the station un-
der the control of any established
school haring an experimental farm
and willing to take up the task of
experimentation.
st. Johns College meets these re-
quirements. 1t was at this college
that the State chemist and his lab
oratory was located. 1t was farm
forexperimentation; one given it for
the purpose recently by the govern
ment, and there is no better farm
in the State.
Wherein does the Agricultural
College meet further the require
ments of the act Of July second 1862
than does this college? st. Johns
College has Naval Officer III charge
of the mechanical department, and
an army officer teaches military
seianca and Tactics