the general court enacted that premiums should be paid for the best types of sheep that should be bred in the colony, stipulating that it shall be "lawful for any man to keep sheep on any common, be it for cows, oxen or otherwise, belonging to the town where he lives." South Carolina and Virginia made similar attempts to encourage sheep raising in 1775.

1

Dutch Colonists of New Netherland likewise made efforts to develop the soil, and appealed to the home government for aid. In their Great Remonstrance against the administration of Governor Petrus Stuyvesant in 1649, the three deputies to the States General of the United Netherlands repeatedly asserted the need of better cultivation of crops in the American colony, and as a partial response to this appeal a committee of the States General ordered that "a suitable person conversant with Agricultural matters and the nature of soils, shall be forthwith dispatched and sent by the first opportunity to New Netherland to take charge of the lands situated on both sides of the Great North River, extending southerly to the South River, and northerly to the French River."

In 1659, the Commissioner of the Dutch Colony on the Delaware asserted that "the cultivation of the soil" was "the principal, yea, the sole object" of the colony on the Delaware.

Precedents for the agricultural schools and experiment stations which now constitute one of the major fields of work for the Office of Experiment Stations, were early established in the colonies. Through government aid, great handicaps were overcome. Besides Fitzherbert's Book of Husbandry, which had been published in England in 1534, there was scarcely any teachable agricultural literature that was applicable to American conditions until Jared Eliot's Essays on Farming appeared in Connecticut in 1747. The tendency to abandon exhausted fields for the abundant new grounds in the vicinity was not conducive to "book farming." Furthermore, there was considerable antagonism to public education in general. Even Governor William Berkeley of Virginia, who had graduated from Oxford, which, tradition avers, grew out of a school that was established for farm boys, and who ardently

1 Charters and general acts of Massachusetts Bay Colony, p. 188 (1654). 2 Brodhead, J. R., and O'Callaghan, E. B., Documents relative to the colonial history of the state of New York.

encouraged experimentation with fertilizers and numerous farm crops, was opposed to even the mediums of agricultural extension work.

Agricultural education in North America, had its beginning in Canada about 1668 by the establishment of Lesser Seminary, where "the children of artisans and peasants were taught farming and the various mechanical arts," and the plan was soon destined to develop in the other American colonies.

This early agricultural education was thus largely experimental. Even Jared Eliot's text-book is but little more than a record of experimental experiences. Samuel Deane, writing in 1790 expressed the wish that there might be more experiments made in this new agricultural country. He devoted a page to "experiments" in his dictionary, and he regretted that the results of more experiments were not recorded. Experimental agriculture was treated in an anonymous volume entitled "Rural Economy," which was published in 1792 at Burlington, Vermont, and fourteen years later Samuel Johnson published a volume under the same title at New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Practical elementary education whereby students might observe the methods of the best farms was championed in 1749 by Benjamin Franklin, and two years later the chemistry of agriculture was taught in the Philadelphia Academy, from which grew the University of Pennsylvania. While in England, as an agent of the Colony of Pennsylvania in 1764-1775, Franklin further stimulated agricultural experimentation by sending seeds and cuttings for new crops.

5

Precedents for the Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862 are to be found in the records of the colonies. In 1764, Sir James Jay appealed to George III in behalf of the Governors of Kings College in the city of New York, “That his Majesty will be pleased to grant twenty thousand acres of land in the Province of New

3

Quoted in Leake, The means and methods of agricultural education, P. II.

Bailey, Cyclopedia of American agriculture, Vol. IV, p. 361.

B 'An account of government aid to education in the colonies is Clews, Educational legislation and administration of the colonial governments, in Columbia University, Contributions to Philosophy, Psychology and Education, Vol. VI, Nos. 1-4. See also studies in the Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture, 1894-1899.

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York, free of the conditions of cultivation and Quit Rent to the Governors of the College" for its behoof, and that the Governors may have leave to locate the quantity of land allowed the said college out of any of the Crown lands in the said Province," before any other persons are permitted to locate the same "-after the manner of the act of 1862-and the Lords of Trade recommended that the Privy Council grant the petition.

National Activities Anticipatory of the Office of Experiment Stations. Although there was considerable doubt as to the propriety of public aid to agricultural enterprises, Franklin was by no means alone in his interest in agricultural experiments and instruction. Many statesmen and private citizens were trying to find means to resuscitate farming from the deplorable condition in which the Revolutionary War had left it. Particularly interested were those city inhabitants whose economic existence was dependent upon agriculture. In the cities, therefore, rather than in the rural communities did the agitation for agricultural enlightenment begin. These movements were sporadic, taking the form of local agricultural societies in various cities, and they were patronized by publicists. In Philadelphia the first American society for promoting agriculture was organized in 1785. Both Franklin and Washington were members, and they took a very deep interest in it. During the same year a similar society was formed in South Carolina with a view to the development of an experimental farm. These organizations were followed by such institutions as the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture, 1792, and the Connecticut Society for Promoting Agriculture, 1803. Other early societies were the New York Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Arts and Manufactures and the Pennsylvania Society of Agriculture.

Considerable correspondence passed between Americans and Englishmen who were interested in agriculture. Washington was made an honorary member of the British Board of Agriculture in 1793, and in the following year the president, Sir John Sinclair, suggested that the United States create a similar society. To this suggestion Washington replied that he feared it would be some Brodhead and O'Callaghan, pp. 644-46.

time "before an agricultural society with Congressional aid will be established in this country.'

After Washington had indicated his intention of retiring, Sinclair again urged him to establish a central agricultural organization. He wrote: “I hope that you will recommend some agricultural establishment on a great scale before you quit the reins of government. By that I mean a board of agriculture, or some similar institution, at Philadelphia, with societies of agriculture in the capital of each state to correspond with it."*

The forerunner of a national society was organized in 1809, in the District of Columbia. This was the Columbian Agriculture Society for the Promotion of Rural and Domestic Economy, but it was not until 1852 that a truly national society was organized."

These early tendencies on the part of the agricultural societies to nurture this educational work as it is now fostered by the Office of Experiment Stations were recognized by Washington, and although both he and Alexander Hamilton were dubious as to the national government's constitutional right to organize a national system of agricultural education, he nevertheless urged in his first inaugural address the advancement of agriculture "by all proper

means."

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As to what those means should be, he was much more specific in his eighth annual message to Congress on December 7, 1796. His suggestions might well have been interpreted to include agricultural colleges, experiment stations, extension work, premiums for the kind of work that is now being done by the boys' clubs, and the national popularization of newly discovered scientific truths. He assured Congress that with reference to "national welfare agriculture is of primary importance," and that the growth of the country

renders the cultivation of the soil more and more an object of public patronage. Institutions for promoting it grow up, supported

'From Greathouse, Historical sketch of the U. S. department of agriculture, p. 6.

8

Quoted by Poore, History of the agriculture of the United States, in Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1866, p. 514.

A historical sketch of the United States Agricultural Society is minuted in the annual report of the Commissioner of Patents, 1859. A history of the rural associations is given in the annual report for 1875.

by the public purse, and to what object can it be dedicated with greater propriety? Among the means which have been employed to this end none have been attended with greater success than the establishment of boards (composed of proper characters) charged with collecting and diffusing information, and enabled by premiums and small pecuniary aids to encourage and assist a spirit of discovery and improvement. This species of establishment contributed doubly to the increase of improvement by stimulating to enterprise and experiment, and by drawing to a common center the results everywhere of individual skill and observations, and spreading them thence over the whole nation. Experience accordingly has shown that they are very cheap instruments of immense national benefits.

I have heretofore proposed to the consideration of Congress the expediency of establishing a national university and also a military academy.

10

Following this recommendation, a congressional committee reported to Congress in favor of the institution of a society "under the patronage of government, which might act as a common center to all other societies of a similar kind throughout the United States,"" such as is now coördinately supplied by the Office of Experiment Stations' service.

A memorial to Congress praying for a national board of agriculture or other aid which would be in accordance with the suggestions of Washington, was submitted by the Berkshire Agricultural Society of Massachusetts in 1817," but the measure was defeated on constitutional grounds. Two years later, however, the ideal of national aid to agricultural experimentation was fostered through administrative agencies without any specific provision by Congress. On March 26, 1819, the Secretary of the Treasury, William H. Crawford, sent a circular letter to United States consuls requesting them to send useful seeds and plants to the collectors of American ports for distribution among persons who might experiment with them."

10

10 The extent to which the national government has exercised its constitutional powers in promoting public education since 1785 is summarized in Keith and Bagley, The nation and the schools, pp. 101-06.

11

12

4 Cong. 2 sess., Annals of Congress, p. 1835.

14 Cong. 2 sess., ibid., p. 767-68, 1018.

13 Watson, History of . . . Western canals . . . together with the rise, progress, and existing state of modern agricultural societies, on the Berkshire system, from the year 1807, to the establishment of the state board of agriculture in Albany, Jan. 10, 1820, pp. 205-06.