Educational Institutions

THE STATE BOARD OF CONTROL

The State Board of Control has the direction of the financial and business affairs of the state educational institutions.

The State Board of Regents has charge of all matters of a purely scholastic nature concerning the state educational institutions.

West Virginia University

Agricultural Experiment Station Staff

*In co-operation with the U. S. Department of Agriculture.

In co-operation with the University of Chicago.

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

Morgantown, W. Va., Sept. 1, 1916.

To His Excellency Henry D. Hatfield,
Governor of West Virginia:

Sir:

In accordance with the acts of Congress for the establishment and maintenance of agricultural experiment stations, known as the Hatch and Adams Acts, which require that each station make an annual report to the Governor of the state in which it is located, I beg to submit the following report of the work of the West Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station for the biennium ending June 30, 1916. Financial statements of the receipts and expenditures of the station as required by the federal statutes and as approved by the Office of Experiment Stations of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, are given. Financial statements of funds derived from state appropriations, from the sale of farm products, and from the income of fertilizer control, are also given. Inasmuch as the work of the Division of Resident Instruction and particularly that of the Division of Agricultural Extension are intimately connected with the work of the Agricultural Experiment Station, I am appending the biennial report of their activities. As a matter of fact the Experiment Station is the research branch of the College of Agriculture and the Extension Division carries the work of the Station and College to the people of the State. We have thus one institution organized to do three different kinds of work. The following reports are the same as have been submitted to the State Board of Control and the State Board of Regents through the President of West Vir ginia University.

Respectfully submitted,
JOHN LEE COULTER,

Director.

Department of Poultry Husbandry

Department of Veterinary Science

Legislation Recommended by the Director__

Director's Statement of Needs

Report of the Division of Resident Instruction__

New Agricultural Hall

Agricultural Hall Annex

Greenhouses

Farms

Home Economics Practice Cottage

Farmers' Week

Farmers' Winter Courses

Summer School

Registration in the College

Summary of Salaries

Needs and Recommendations

Reports by Departments of Instruction____

Report of the Division of Agricultural Extension..

Extension Schools

Farmers' Week

Farmers' Institutes

Educational Exhibits

Correspondence Courses and Reading Circles_-_.

Publications and Inquiries

Boys' Agricultural Clubs

County Agricultural Agents

Girls' Garden and Canning Clubs...

Home Economics

Work of Specialists of College Departments.

Financial Statement

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West Virginia Agricultural Experiment

Station

JOHN LEE COULTER, Director.

The following quotation from the last biennial report, prepared by my predecessor, bears repetition:

"The West Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station is a distinct and separate department of the University which was established by the Board of Regents in 1887 in acceptance of the act of Congress approved March 2, 1887, known as the Hatch Act, making appropriation for the maintenance of such an experiment station in each state. This was authorized by the Legislature of West Virginia, Acts of 1899, chapter 17. Further support was given by an act of Congress, known as the Adams Act, approved March 16, 1906, which was accepted by the West Virginia Legislature under Senate Joint Resolution No. 18, Session of 1909, approved February 23, 1909. The last session of the State Legislature saw fit to supplement this federal approval by said appropriations which are mentioned further below. Section 27 of the Hatch Act fully states the object and purpose of the experiment station as follows: "That it shall be the object and duty of said experiment station to conduct original researches to verify experiments on the physiology of plants and animals; the diseases to which they are severally subject, with the remedies for the same; the chemical composition of useful plants at their different stages of growth; the comparative advantages of rotative cropping as pursued under varying series of crops; the capacity of new plants or trees for acclimation; the analysis of soils and water; the chemical composition of manures, natural or artificial, with experiments designed to test their comparative effects on crops of different kinds; the adaptation and value of grasses and forage plants; the composition and digestibility of the different kinds of feeds for domestic animals; the scientific and economic questions involved in the production of butter and cheese; and such other researches and experiments bearing directly on the agricultural industry of the United States as may in each case be deemed advisable, having due regard to the varying conditions and needs of the respective states and territories'.

"In addition to the work above outlined the station has been charged by the State Legislature with the enforcement of the law for the control of commercial fertilizers, chapter 62-B of the West Virginia Code.

"The experiment station is primarily an institution of scientific research

for the benefit of West Virginia agriculture. It does not undertake any general extension work for the development of the agriculture of the state in the way of demonstration or through other educational means, such work now being organized under the department of Agricultural Extension of the College of Agriculture of West Virginia University.

"It is desirable that there be a clear conception of the purpose of the agricultural experiment station at the present time. During the past biennium the experiment stations founded by these acts of Congress have celebrated their first quarter-century of existence. Prior to their establishment there was practically no agricultural science in this country and the agricultural colleges had been of but little real benefit. The work done by other scientists during the past quarter-century has laid a broad foundation for the future development of agriculture and has been directly responsible for the increased growth and usefulness of our agricultural colleges. The present increased service of the agricultural colleges to all of the rural population of the several states through their agricultural extension departments is a direct outgrowth of the work of the experiment stations, for without the scientific work of the latter there would have been no body of knowledge worthy of taking to the people. Thus, extension work is the direct result of the conviction of experiment station workers that the results of their investigations were not being sufficiently utilized by the farmers. We are coming to appreciate, however, that we have but a very elementary knowledge of the sciences upon which the various phases of the art of agriculture are dependent. Difficulties and new problems are constantly arising which baffle solution and which challenge the ability of our keenest scientists. It is important, therefore, that with the remarkable increased usefulness of the agricultural colleges in spreading a better knowledge of modern methods of farming, that it be remembered that this work will have no permanent basis of success unless our experiment stations are given such support as will enable them in the future to furnish the scientific basis for improved agricultural methods."

Too much emphasis cannot be placed on this point, that there are three units or links in the chain; of these the first in order of consideration, as well as of final importance, is the Experiment Station. Without it there can be no body of truths, the science of agriculture. The second is the College of Agriculture which trains young and old men and women who seek to learn these truths. The third is the Extension Department which is powerless unless the agricultural science is built up by the experiment station, and equally powerless unless leaders are trained in the College of Agriculture. As dean of the College of Agriculture, of which the Extension Department is an important division, I strongly urge the increases in appropriations described in another place for the extension work and the college; but, as director of the Experiment Station, I urge even more strongly that provisions be made for the building up of a body of truths through projects in the Experiment Station. I trust that ample provisions will first be made for the Experiment Station even if all that might be desired cannot be made available for the College of Agriculture and its extension service.