The La Jara chronicle. (La Jara, Conejos County, Colo.) 1896-19??, 1911-04-28
THE SCHOLAR
IN AGRICULTURE

agriculture in colleges could have
been summed up in the words
"back to the farm" The fear
was that scientific training would
create a taste for teaching and
for investigating at the expense
of taste for practical farming.
But now all that is changed and
farming has become so profitable
that the fear is not that men will
abondon farms for professorships,
but that they will desert profes-
sorships for farms. The cry to-
day is Back to the colleges and
experiment stations and out on
tho road in the interest of agri-
cultural extension"
There were thirty-eight grad
yates in animal husbandry at the
Iowa State college this year, and
thirty-three of them chose to go
back to the farm. Sixteen were
offered positions in high schools
at salaries of from $1,000 to
81 200, and all refused. Twelve
were offered positions in colleges
at salaries of from 81 900 to
So, 900, and only four accepted.
But educated men on the farm
know the value of expert advice,
and the result is a greater de-
mand for teachers and expert
ment station workers than the ag-
ricultural colleges can meet. This
need has led the Association of
American Agricultural Colleges
and Experimental Stations to
establish a movable school for
advanced instruction in agricul-
ture.
The school is known as grad
uate School Of Agriculture. 1t
met in 1902 at Ohio State Uni
versity, in 1906 at the University
of Illinois, in 1908 at Cornell, and
in July, 1910, at the State College
Of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts
at Amcs, Iowa. 1t admits to mem
bership only those who have
taken college degree in agri
culture, but, in spite of this re
striction, more than $50 students
came from the North and the
South, the East and the West,
from thirty-eight states and ter
ritories, from Canada, Cuba, Den
mark, Russia and the Transvaal.
The story of what may be called
the awakening in agricultural ed
ucation was told by DR.. A. c.
Tru., director of experiment sta
tons and dean of the Graduate
school, in his opening address.
The statistics gathered in his
office at Washington show that
30 positions in agricultural col
leges and stations have been
created since 1907, and that $50
other institutions have introduced
courses in agriculture.
1t is the custom of the Grad
uate school to invite one or two
distinguished foreign scientists
to lecture at each of its sessions.
This year those who came from
abroad were DR.. E. Won fischer
max, lecturer on plant breeding
in the Royal, Imperial Agricul-
tural College of Austria, and DR..
j. G. Ewart of the University of
Edinburgh.
Among Americans on the facul-
ty were DR.. Weber of Cornell,
whose success in breeding hardy
varieties of oranges is taking
the terror of a freeze from Flor
ida; DR.. MacDougal of the Carne-
gle desert laboratory at Tucson,
Arizona, who is making arid lands
bud and blossom by acclimatizing
plants to them; Dr. F. l.. Stevens
of North Carolina Agricultural
college whose researches in
plant pathology have been of
immense economic value to mark
ct gardeners; DR.. Castle of Har-
ward, DR.. Armsby, director of the
Institute of Animal Nutrition of
Pennsylvania State college, and
DR.. Butterfield of Massachusetts,,
a member of President Roosevelt s
country life commission, who de-
clares that "to maintain upon the
land q class of neOnla Ayhn rom