The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1922-08-17

The Fort Hays Experiment Station
was established as a branch of the
Kansas Experiment Station, by legis-
Iative enactment in 1901. The land
set aside for the Experiment Station
was approximately half of the old
Fort Hays Military Reservation. Ex-
perimental work began in 1902 and
has steadily increased until at the
present time the Fort Hays Expert
ment Station is the largest Expert
ment Station in the United States.
The Sation proper embraces an
area of three thousand six hundred
acres adjoining the City of Hays and
in addition, tract of three thousand,
two hundred acres fourteen miles
west of Hays is leased for pasture
purposes.
The Experiment Station is a SER
vice institution established to assist
the Western Kansas farmer in devel-
oping a profitable agriculture. It's
activities cover the entire field of
Agriculture embracing crop produc-
tion, forestry, gardening, dairying
and the production of beef cattle,
sheep and hogs. The work already
accomplished by the Fort Hays Sta
ton has placed it in the front rank in
the experimental work in the United
States In fact the activities of the
Station have become internationally
known and results of work done at
Hays are being utilized in several
foreign countries.
l. C. Aicher, the new Superinten-
dent of the Fort Hays Experiment
Station, is a Coloradoan by birth and
a Kansan by adoption. He is a grad
uate of the Kansas Agricultural Col
Iege and has supervised experimental
work in Idaho for the state and fed
eral governmnt for eleven years. Mr..
Aicher is a farmer as we'll as an eX-
perimenter, as he owns and operates
two irrigated farms in Idaho, both of
which are mainly seeded to Grimm
alfalfa for seed production.
The work on the Fort Hays Station
is divided into the Experimental Divi-
sion and the General Farm Division.
The records and operating costs are
maintained separately for ecah divi-
sion.
The Office of Cereal Investigations,
the Office of Dry Land Agriculture,
and the Office of Forage Crop Invest
igations, three prominent divisions of
the great Bureau of Plant industry of
the U. S. Department of Agriculture,
are cooperating with the Fort Hays
Experiment Station in carrying out
the investigational work in these i'm
portant branches. Three highly train
ed scientific agriculturists are main
tanned at the Experiment Station by
the federal Department of Agricul-
ture to take charge of these three
lines of work.
Mr.. A. L. Halsted in charge of the
Dry Land Agriculture Investigations,
is the pioneer of the scientific staff
having taken over his line of work
early in 1909. His long period of
service coupled with his accurate and
painstaking experimental methods,
has given his work the reputation of
being some of the best, if not the
best, in its line in the whole United
States. Mr. R. E. Getty took charge
of the forage work at the Station in
1913, the year the Government began
its cooperative work in this line of
investigation at the Fort Hays Sta
tion. The results of the forage crop
and bindweed investigations, follow
ing the excellent work done by Mr..
Getty, are quoted very widely over
the entire United States. Mr.. A. F.
Swanson, in charge of the work in
Cereal Investigations, is new conner
in point of service, having taken over
his line of work in 1919. He has al
ready accomplished some excellent
work in the hybridization of sorghums
and may soon have a very valuable
variety for distribution in Western
Kansas.
Since 1912 the cereal experimental
work at the Station has been carried
on in cooperation with the Office of
Cereal Investigations of the U. S. De
partment of Agriculture. The Cereal
work embraces varietal testing with
all cereals and the grain sorghums in
sofar as it applies to grain production
and the production and selection of
new varieties and sorts having capac-
ity for higher yield and improved
qualities generally. Over 400 plats
and 1000 individual rows were re-
quired in the cereal investigationaI
work this year.
In 1920 large number of new i'm