East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1913-03-01

from all over the country upon Ore
gon lands. And he saw many other
things where it seemed to him the
college coud help. For the farmers
he offered Farmers Week and six
weeks winter courses in agronomy,
animal husbandry, horticulture and
dairying. For farmers wives and viii
lage and city homekeepers a six-weeks
course in domestic science and art |
For the better handling, harvesting |
and preservation of Oregon's thirty |
sixth of the total for the United |
States six-weeks' course for forest !
rangers. To mitigate disease and |
prevent contagion among the millions
of Oregon's domestic animals, in
struction in veterinary science for
farmers and would-be farmers. To
search out the best local materials for
road-building and decrease waste from
incompetent supervision, testing of
Oregon rocks by experts, and a course
in highway construction. To meet
the extensive call for trained instruc-
tors along agricultural and other yo-
cational lines and better to adapt the
common schools to their true func-
ton of preparing for life, a six-weeks'
summer course in industrial pedago-
gy. To all who ask, free examinatiCo
of soils, water, oils, clays, insecticides,
feeding stuffs, phosphates, lime, gyp-
sum and so on; and tests for animal
diseases, such as tuberculosis. In these
and other matters of vital moment to
the health and prosperity of Oregon's
population, nearly forty thousand let
ters of inquiry were answered in one
year. Wherever there is an outbreak
of contagion among animals, or pests
threaten the fruit industry, experts
are sent to the disturbed locality,
where they search out the causes, ap-
ply known remedies or possibly dis
cover new as they did in the case of
peach spot, which they practically ELI
minated from Oregon
Comparatively few farmers or far
mers wives can pursue even the short
courses in residence at the college.
Besides this, new truths are constant
ly being discovered and new applica-
tions made of known principles.
These are only of practical value as
utilized on the farm. To bring the
college closer to the people President
Kerr has introduced into Oregon the
movable school, itinerant expert in
structors, and demonstration trains,
the last furnished and equipped by un-
|
ate the tremendous practical value of
his work for Oregon. When the dem
onstration trains go, the lectures are
delivered on board; in other places
halls are secured. The experts ad-
dress farmers institutes, women's
clubs, Christian associations, boys
poultry clubs-to whomsoever will lis
ten, useful information is freely
given. Men get their farm animals
together and are shown the best
points in horses, dairy and beef ami
mails, pigs and poultry. Or the ex-
perts go on the farm itself, size up
the farmers stock, let him prune
trees under their direction, show him
how to use sprays for pests such as
the San Jose scale or codling moth,
give him formulas for the sprays, and
so on. His wife receives in the lec-
ture room or her own home hints on
cooking, home sanitation. house fur
nishing and decoration, or she may be
instructed in poultry husbandry, or
In the uses Of churns and separators.
Thus Is carried on a system of dis
semination that aims ultimately to
take information to the individual in
any industry and see that It Is in
corporated into his every-d day practice.
This matter of taking the college to
the people is very near President
knowledge most worth while Is a
working knowledge, where brain, eye
and hand work In unison.
President Kerr has not been idle
) along the line of original research
work. He has secured added support
) for the Oregon Agricultural and Un-
lon Branch stations and succeeded in
having two new stations establish ed
one to investigate irrigation and
prainage problems on the government
irrigation project at Umatilla: the
other a dry farm experiment station
to work out a system Of crop rota-
ton suited to various non-irrigated j
sections of Oregon. In much of this
research work he has solicited and
received the cooperation of experts
from the Bureau of Plant Industry
and the Reclamation Service.
DR.. Kerr is preeminently man
living in the present, doing today's
work today and fitting others to go
and do likewise. The significant
word most often in his mouth is the
word practical And in this word we