Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The United States Department of Agriculture, 1862 1912; The Experiment Stations; The Influence of the Morrill Act Upon American Higher Education; The American Agricultural Colleges
In the Patent Office period, the principle was established that the Federal Government would use science for the advancement of agri culture and there was a small beginning of experimental inquiry in a so-called propagating garden. There were even fond anticipations that agriculture would become an exact science. Thus in 1842 Com missioner Ellsworth says: The value of the agricultural products almost exceeds belief. If the application of the sciences be yet further made to husbandry, what vast improvements may be anticipated! To allude to but a single branch of the subject, agricultural chemistry is at length a popular and useful study. Instead of groping along with experiments to prove what cr0ps lands will bear to best advantage, an immediate and direct analysis of the soil shows at once its adaptation for a particular manure or crop.
But there were many doubters not only of the value of science as applied to agriculture, but also of the desirability of governmental aid to agriculture. Hence appropriations ?uctuated and sometimes were cut off. A wave of pessimism swept over the Patent Office in 1860, when Commissioner Bishop wrote that so thoroughly have the public become impressed with the importance and necessity of im proving agriculture that it may well be doubted whether anything Congress may do can give an additional impetus to the movement. He therefore recommended that appropriations be confined to the funds required for publishing agricultural information and collecting and distributing foreign seeds and plants.
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