legislature, to give broad authority (by 1880) to a station director (21, p. 87).

The first campaign to awaken an awareness that each agricultural college needed an experiment station took form, soon after the ending of the Civil War, at the newly founded Illinois Industrial University. The State charter of this land-grant institution required that the corresponding secretary of the board of trustees administer a statewide program of farmer-conducted tests of specified field crops. This arduous assignment further expected the trustees' agent to select particular experiments for home trial, to prepare instructions for volunteer experimenters, to publish the meaningful results, and, in short, to follow techniques similar to those used in Scotland by the Highland and Agricultural Society during the early years of the century. Willard C. Flagg undertook this duty in 1867.

FLAGG ADVOCATED EXPERIMENT STATION

Energetic and enterprising, Flagg earnestly attempted to devise experimental routines of scientific accuracy. He promptly collided with the manifold complexities implicit in agricultural research and, discerning the crudeness of the system he had engaged himself to supervise, determined to find administrative methods for concentrating the professional scientific training of the college faculty on the problems of research (21, p. 80). For the utilization of this faculty talent, taking his cue from Sheffield's Professor Johnson (8, p. 254), Flagg decided by 1870 that an experiment station would provide the best administrative organization in Illinois.

This decision clarified Flagg's thinking but it did not solve his immediate and urgent problem of devising more comprehensive arrangements, even if informal and temporary ones, than yet existed to involve college teachers of science in permanent experimentation on farmers' problems. Assuming that experiment-minded men at other agricultural colleges faced a similar situation, Flagg discussed the matter with Professor Manly Miles of the Michigan faculty. The two men agreed that it would be possible to draft a set of simple and economical field experiments which cooperating college officers could conduct conjointly, all experimenters to follow uniform procedures at their own institutions. Convinced that the time had come for an intercollegiate discussion and an action program, Flagg then persuaded President John M. Gregory of Illinois University to participate in the project. Thereupon Gregory addressed a call to the presidents and the professors of the agricultural colleges. Representatives from 12 land-grant institutions met in Chicago on August 24 and 25, 1871.

President Gregory chaired this convention of "Friends of Agricultural Education" (8), but Flagg's leadership on the floor gave direction and purpose to the discussions and activity at the 2-day sessions. Flagg introduced a series of resolutions containing his recommendations for accelerating experimental investigations and for improving administrative methods. The convention after frank discussion adopted his major propositions. It directed chairman Gregory to appoint a committee of five members to report "a set of experiments recommended for trial at the agricultural colleges in the various States, with detailed statements of the methods of performing them,

so as to insure all possible uniformity of conditions at each point." That committee under Flagg's leadership reported to the convention an enumeration of the types of investigation which "our colleges founded on the national grant" ought to pursue:

I. Meterological observations.

II. Mechanical experiments.

III. Experiments in physics, especially in the effects of different degrees of light, heat and electricity and moisture on vegetable life.

IV. Experiments in industrial chemistry, such as analysis of clays and other earths used in the arts; of coal, lime, and building rocks, minerals, manures, plants and their products, and animal products.

V. Experiments in mining and metallurgy.

VI. Experiments with soils in their drainage, pulverization by different implements and their compaction; the application of different fertilizers; the variation of soils in adjoining plots, then continuous cropping without manure and other irrigation.

VII. Experiments in special culture with different varieties of grasses, grains, roots, plants, trees, etc. with variations in the time, distance and depth of planting, modes of cultivation, harvesting, manuring, modes of propagation; and with insects and diseases affecting plants.

VIII. Experiments in the breeding and fattening of domestic animals, comparing difference, breeds and species, then diseases, etc.

After presenting these comprehensive recommendations to the convention, the committee report went on to account for the exceptional length, breadth, and depth of the program:

We enumerate these [classes] to give those who have not given the subject special attention, some idea of the immensity of the labor to be performed. To a large extent, of course, these experiments must be tried by each State, for its own people, according to its peculiar wants and capabilities. To a large extent, however, experiments may be tried in common or repeated all over the country. Especially this is true of the culture of certain widely grown plants, such as corn, wheat and other cereals. Accordingly we submit herewith two or three simple experiments of primary importance and inexpensive character, which we hope to have begun next year at a large number of our agricultural colleges, and prosecuted to final results.

The format of this report clearly revealed the quality of Flagg's generalship. The recommendations did not limit themselves to the formulation of a small set of simple field tests, though the committeemen showed keen interest in these practical experiments and Flagg soon secured the appointment of a subcommittee charged with putting them into operation. The recommendations, by stressing "the immensity of the labor to be performed", deliberately laid heavy initial emphasis on the long-range objectives of research. The fields of investigation, most of which implicitly made laboratory research mandatory, further disclosed Flagg's skill in steering the convention away from an easy assumption that adequate research included only empirical trials.

FLAGG REPORT ADOPTED

The statesmanlike comprehensiveness of the report adopted by the convention evidenced an even more significant triumph for Flagg. The report professed to present areas suitable for immediate investigation via the techniques of conjoint experimentation. Yet it openly recognized the inadequacy of an approach which relied on collating the results of experiments conducted in dissimilar physical environments; effective research would not occur, the report admitted, until each State initiated experimentation "for its own people, according

to its peculiar wants and capabilities." The committeemen concluded that the informal cooperation of volunteer experimenters at widely scattered colleges, though useful as a preliminary step, could not accomplish in the long run the research program which in their judgment the agricultural colleges ought to undertake.

What additional action, then, should the convention take as it sought to select the most useful procedure for research? Flagg set the goal early in the session when he announced, "It is one of my ideals that ... we shall establish at each of our agricultural colleges an agricultural experiment station, similar to those of Europe. I think that is absolutely necessary to agricultural advancement." Thus at Flagg's urging the "Friends" turned their thinking toward the prospect of founding experiment stations at the colleges.

The convention members promptly discovered, however, that bothersome obstacles lay in their path. Unfortunately for them, Senator Morrill in his Act of 1862 had not clearly indicated his ambitions concerning the nature and extent of research activity in the land-grant colleges. When he introduced his college bill in April 1858 he confidently predicted that his proposed "thoroughly scientific institutions" could make "a careful, exact, and systematized registration of experiments. . .;" he intimated that faculty members were to "collate" the results of empirical tests and prepare "tables" as preliminary procedures for making "a rational induction of principles upon which we may expect to establish a proper science [of agriculture]" (16).

These enigmatic remarks presumably anticipated that each college would administer in its State a system of cooperative experimentation in which a large number of participating farmers would volunteer the data secured in home trials. Perhaps he intended an interstate form of conjoint experimentation; yet he did not indicate that this type of investigation would involve laboratory work, nor that the college should perform the functions of an experiment station.

Justin Morrill did refer, nevertheless, to the German station movement in his Senatorial remarks in 1858. "In Saxony," he observed at one point, "they have a number of experiment stations, or experimental farms, with laboratories attached. . . ." (16). He used this brief reference, however, only as one of several examples to demonstrate the desirability of governmental support for agricultural education. This Saxon innovation did not give him the same inspiration that it had given 4 years earlier to Samuel Johnson.

The Morrill bill itself, which Congress enacted into law in 1862, made only two references to the research function. The act provided that a sum not to exceed 10 percent of the initial endowment could be used to purchase lands "for sites or [for] experimental farms;" it further stipulated that the annual report should record any "experiments made, with their cost and results" (16). Thus the philosophy of research voiced by Senator Morrill permitted the endowed colleges to conduct a simple form of experimentation. Yet the indistinct nature of the research authority in the Act of 1862, compared to the emphatic assignment of a teaching mission to the new colleges, prompted the first generation of college administrators to doubt that the Act of 1862 required the colleges to experiment, except as an aid in the instruction of students.

President Gregory, at the convention of 1871 (8), called attention to the seemingly incidental role which the phraseology of the Morrill Act had unfortunately allotted to the research function. His presidential colleagues, he pointed out, seriously questioned the view that the Morrill Act obligated the colleges to experiment and, he discreetly noted, "it has not been uniformly accepted that the agricultural colleges are to be experiment stations." Thus the Morrill Act provided no strength for a station movement; nor did the well-known European practice of founding independent stations offer persuasive precedents for an integration of college and station which the convention contemplated. Nevertheless, Gregory heartily sympathized with the sentiment of the convention that the colleges must immediately find ways to press forward with research activity. Conjoint experimentation appealed to him because it would put faculty investigators at a number of colleges simultaneously to work on a few selected problems, an arrangement promising to produce solutions more speedily than if each college faculty followed an independent

course.

A tone of urgency sounded in Greogory's words when he observed that the need for a well-developed system of research had become "a very serious practical question." Farmers, beset with problems they could not solve, were bringing to the college staff pointed questions that could be answered only by astute, continuous, and productive experimentation. The infant colleges, depending for their existence on the public purse and public confidence, could not afford to ignore the public need; neither could they afford to mislead the farm population by giving it incorrect advice lest the potent suspicion of "bookfarmers" deepen into scorn. Gregory's concern led him to declare:

We know this, that the country is demanding of the institutions that they shall conduct experiments. They are constantly calling, through the agricultural press, at agricultural conventions and otherwise, upon these colleges to help them to settle questions relating to agriculture. Whatever might have been claimed at the outset to be the duty of these colleges, I trust we shall fulfill a public demand and duty by instituting experimentation.

ROLE OF COLLEGES BROADENED

For this reason Gregory openly encouraged the convention to take action, in addition to approving immediate conjoint experimentation, which would initiate "combination and cooperation" among the college faculties as a means of accelerating and amplifying research of top quality. He urged the convention to decide "how far [the landgrant colleges] ... can be made experiment stations, how far their forces and funds can be diverted . . . and used for this purpose." This encouragement provided Willard Flagg with an opportunity. He introduced, toward the close of the discussions on the second day, the following resolutions which the convention approved:

Resolved, That the very strong commendation that the agricultural experiment stations of Europe have received from such persons as Johnson and Liebig as a source of a large amount of agricultural science and practical progress, as well as our own examinations into the subject, make us believe the establishment of not less than one such station in each of the several States of the Union, would be eminently beneficial to the agricultural interests of the country. Resolved, That a committee, consisting of one from each of the several States in which an institution founded on the national grant has been organized, be appointed by the President [Gregory], whose duty it shall be to memorialize

Congress and the several State Legislatures for the speedy establishment of such stations throughout the country.

Thus the conventioneers of 1871 in their thinking and their action stressed three major convictions. First, they affirmed that the faculties of the agricultural colleges must assume in the public interest the urgent duty to conduct productive research in agriculture. Second, they decided that the experiment station, a specialized and specific administrative institution, could best accomplish comprehensive experimentation. Third, they resolved that the stations must appear soon.

The convention recognized, in addition, a most troublesome handicap, namely, the inability of the hard-pressed colleges to pay the necessary expenses of founding and maintaining a station establishment. Accordingly, the convention delegates determined to seek support from the State legislatures, and the Federal Government as well. This decision answered Gregory's searching question as to "how far . . . [the colleges] can be made experiment stations." The Morill funds should not be "diverted" from the college's teaching function; instead, additional and separate Government funds should support the station movement. This action signified more than a realistic concession to expediency; it revealed the convention's realization that research in station form, so fundamental a role in land-grant education would it play, deserved separate and substantial tax support. Moreover, the distinctive function of the proposed stations entitled the movement to the special attention of lawmakers.

The committeemen appointed by President Gregory to memorialize their legislative bodies presumably began their campaigning after the convention adjourned in August. Presumably, too, they must have encountered a vexing problem which the late convention had not discussed, that is, the preparation of a plan containing specific proposals for the founding of stations at public expense. Yet no plan emerged from this committee during the following 6 months.

Meanwhile, the station cause received sudden encouragement from an unexpected quarter. Frederick Watts, the Commissioner of Agriculture, took an unprecedented step shortly before Christmas in 1871; he invited representatives from the land-grant colleges, numerous agricultural societies, and State boards of agriculture to a National Agricultural Convention, to be held in Washington, D.C., in mid-February of 1872 (17).

The Commissioner used the unusual device of convention-calling to deal with an urgent problem. He hoped to stimulate a sense of united purpose, in the interest of nationwide agricultural improvement, among agricultural organizations receiving governmental subsidies; especially he wished to forge bonds of understanding between his Department, supported completely by Federal funds, and the land-grant colleges, endowed by the Morrill Act. Immediately, however, the Commissioner wished the delegates to mobilize support behind Senator Morrill's renewed campaign for an enlarged Federal appropriation for the Morrill Act colleges (17, pp. 18-19). On Judge Watt's agenda, moreover, there appeared the following item: "The subject of establishing experimental farms and stations for the promotion of agricultural knowledge."