in defense of liberty and honor and justice. As we stand here under this flag, on this soil untouched yet by the carnage of war, and can almost hear the echoes of the awful struggle upon the fields of France pregnant with so much of meaning for us, it is a fit time to renew our allegiance to this flag; to pledge ourselves, our powers, our resources; to resolve that these boys from the schools, the farms, the workshops who are battling today in defense of what we hold most dear, shall not make their great sacrifice in vain.

Dr. Webber, it is my present privilege, in behalf of the Chamber of Commerce of the City of Riverside, to present to you and your colleagues these flags, the flag of our country and this banner of the great University of California, confident that in this new institution of learning the flag will typify true patriotism, unswerving devotion and loyal service to our country.

THE CITRUS EXPERIMENT STATION AND GRADUATE SCHOOL OF TROPICAL AGRICULTURE

H. J. WEBBER
Dean and Director

Mr. Chairman and Guests of the University:

We have met today to dedicate the first units of the buildings of the Citrus Experiment Station and Graduate School of Tropical Agriculture. As the local representative of the University, immediately in charge of the institution, it is my privilege and duty to explain in some detail what this institution is, the work that it is intended to do, and the ideals that should govern its development. It is highly important that the citizens of the state fully understand the work, as otherwise they may become impatient with the slowness of achievement. Men work by months or years, institutions by decades. The path of discovery by which new truths are added to the world's knowledge, is a long and tortuous one and requires in many cases the most painstaking effort during many years.

HISTORY OF THE INSTITUTION

In the beginning, let us recall briefly the steps and events that led to the establishment of the institution. In 1905 in response to a growing realization of the need of local institutions to provide for the investigation of special plant disease and citrus problems, the Legislature enacted a law entitled "An act providing for the establishment and maintenance of a pathological laboratory for the investi

gation of tree and plant diseases and pests, and branch agricultural experiment station, and making an appropriation therefor." (Chapter 278, Statutes of California, 1905.)

As a result of this act, there was established by the University, the Southern California Pathological Laboratory, at Whittier and the Citrus Experiment Station, at Riverside. Probably the two men most responsible for the establishment of the latter institution, the Citrus Experiment Station, were our townsmen, Mr. J. H. Reed, who is seated with us on this platform today, and Mr. Ethan Allen Chase, whom we expected to have here but who is confined at home, ill. To these men, deans of the citrus industry of the state, this institution and this community owe much. It was peculiarly fitting that Riverside, the home of the first, Washington navel orange trees, which were received by Mrs. L. C. Tibbet from the Department of Agriculture in 1873, and grown in her back yard, should become the site of the first citrus experiment station.

These branch stations served a useful purpose, but they were more or less handicapped for funds, and the land facilities for experimental cultivations were found to be very inadequate. A belief gradually developed that a much larger and more centralized institution was needed in southern California, if the important and difficult problems confronting growers were to be successfully solved.

Meanwhile the importance of enlarging the activities of the College of Agriculture of the University came to be recognized and was given very careful study by President Wheeler and the Board of Regents of the University. Finally Dean Thomas Forsyth Hunt was called from the Pennsylvania State College, to this University to take charge of and direct the reorganization movement. Dean Hunt assumed his new duties in the summer of 1912, and the new ideas of development soon began to take shape.

A movement, fostered primarily by the California Fruit Growers' Exchange and its able manager, Mr. G. Harold Powell, to establish an enlarged citrus experiment station, rapidly gained favor and resulted in the passage of three acts by the 1913 session of the Legislature, providing lands and buildings for an enlarged experiment station to be located by the Regents of the University somewhere in southern California. A total fund of $185,000 was provided for this purpose.

Assembly Bill No. 385, introduced by Assemblyman W. A. Johnstone of San Dimas, and Senate Bill No. 307, introduced by Senator N. W. Thompson of Alhambra, provided a fund of $60,000 for the purchase of land and water rights. This bill was approved by Governor Hiram W. Johnson on June 9, 1913. The full text of the bill is as follows:

CHAPTER 437, STATUTES OF CALIFORNIA, 1913

An act providing for the purchase for the use of the department of agriculture of the University of California, of land and water rights in any of the counties of Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, Imperial, Ventura, or Santa Barbara, and for the planting of said lands and making an appropriation therefor. The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

Section 1. The sum of sixty thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be required, is hereby appropriated out of any moneys in the state treasury not otherwise appropriated, to be paid to the Regents of the University of California, to be used by them for the purchase, for the use of the department of agriculture of the University of California, of a tract or tracts of land, waters and water rights therefor, situate in any of the counties of Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, Imperial, Ventura, or Santa Barbara, as they may select, and for the planting of said land or lands.

Section 2. The state controller is hereby authorized and directed to draw his warrants in favor of said the Regents of the University of California for the moneys herein appropriated, at such time and in such manner as the expenditure of the same shall be required, and the state treasurer is hereby directed to pay said warrants.

Assembly Bill No. 14, introduced by Assemblyman W. H. Ellis of Riverside, and Senate Bill No. 25, introduced by Senator D. W. Mott of Santa Paula (Chapter 399, Statutes of California, 1913) provided a fund of $100,000 for the construction and equipment of laboratory buildings for the new station.

Assembly Bill No. 12, introduced by Assemblyman J. E. Cram of Highlands, and Senate Bill No. 51, introduced by Senator Prescott F. Cogswell of El Monte (Chapter 402, Statutes of California, 1913) provided a fund of $25,000 for the erection of a director's residence, barns, and other necessary minor buildings.

THE LOCATION

Following the provisions of the legislative act, and after an examination of a large number of sites in various parts of southern California, the Regents of the University on December 23, 1914, voted to purchase the site offered at Riverside. The final consummation of this purchase was made June 18, 1915. The location selected embraces a tract of 475 acres of land, of which about 300 acres are tillable, the remainder being rough hilly land suitable only for range and forestry work.

The site is located two and one-half miles from the center of the city of Riverside and is traversed by the paved Box Springs Boulevard, the principal interior road to San Diego. The land is considerably higher than Riverside, toward which it very gradually slopes. The outlook from the elevated parts of the tract above the boulevard, where the laboratory buildings are located, is rarely equaled.

THE BUILDINGS

As soon as possible after the purchase of the land, Mr. Lester H. Hibbard of Los Angeles, a graduate of the School of Architecture of the University, and his associate, Mr. H. B. Cody, were selected as the architects to design the buildings. The contract for the construction of the buildings was awarded to the Cresmer Manufacturing Company, of Riverside, California, and was executed under date of June 20, 1916.

The laboratory buildings are located in a commanding position at the base of a rocky peak, several hundred feet in height; while the residences and farm buildings form separate groups a short distance away. The architecture of the laboratory buildings in general is of the so-called mission style, so far as this type of architecture lends itself to laboratory construction. The buildings are constructed of cement, brick and hollow tile, plastered on the exterior. The broad, overhanging tiled roofs, massive pilastered walls, arched Spanish doorways, and picturesque open arcades from building to building, suggest the Spanish inheritance of California architecture. The group of laboratory buildings comprises a main central building, 154 feet by 57 feet, and two wings (one only as yet erected), each 100 feet by 55 feet.

A special effort was made in planning the buildings to secure the proper facilities for carrying on research work. The laboratories are well lighted and provided with gas, water, electricity for power and light, compressed air and suction. Separate photographic darkrooms are provided for each division of the work.

The laboratory buildings were completed in the spring of 1917 and were first occupied May 21, 1917.

The director's residence occupies a prominent rocky knoll, commanding a view over a large portion of the farm and the surrounding country. The residence is distinctly of southern type, with sun parlor, patio and sleeping porches. A house for the superintendent of cultivations was also erected and occupies a position near the director's residence on that portion of the farm which it is expected will be used as a residential section for the faculty of the institution. These residences were accepted and occupied, March 1, 1917.

The barns and small buildings erected under the first appropriation include a horse barn, a hay barn, two tool sheds, a farm office and carpenter shop, and two pump houses. There were also installed a well, two reservoirs, and the necessary pipelines for domestic and irrigation water.

The building of a new institution requires time. The station is not completed: it is only started; and we are dedicating the first units of what I trust will grow into a large and important institution,

serving the agricultural interests of the state in a broad and efficient way.

The Legislature of 1917 appropriated a sum of $40,000 to be used in erecting the north wing of the present group of buildings, which is to be the chemical laboratory. The erection of this building has been put off until the war closes, as it was thought unwise to use labor at the present time that might more profitably be employed in effective war work. Meanwhile, the chemical work of the station continues to be housed in the Rubidoux Laboratory.

ORGANIZATION AND STAFF

The Staff-The institution now employs fourteen scientific investigators, six laboratory and field assistants, one librarian, four stenographers, and fourteen farm foremen, teamsters, and laborers in various capacities. The organization of the institution was planned for the solution of horticultural problems. With the rapid extension of human knowledge, the time has long since passed when one man can know the various fields of science sufficiently well to expect to pursue successfully investigation that requires a deep knowledge of physics, chemistry, physiology, pathology, and allied sciences. It was thought that an institution for research in agricultural problems should provide for team work in the prosecution of the investigation, calling together specialists in the different sciences concerned.

We are first concerned in establishing a knowledge of the optimum conditions of plant growth, and the branches of science concerned in such investigations are: soil physics, chemistry, and plant physiology. We have in our organization planned to establish such departments or divisions. For the work in agricultural chemistry, Dr. W. P. Kelley, formerly chemist of the Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station at Honolulu, Hawaii, was chosen as its head professor. The Division of Plant Physiology has been established, and Dr. H. S. Reed, formerly plant physiologist and pathologist of the Virginia Agricultural College, appointed as its leader. The Division of Soil Physics, which is very necessary to cover the fundamental sciences concerned, has not yet been organized.

Even if we discover and can give our plants the optimum conditions of growth, they are nevertheless subject to certain diseases and attacks of insect pests, and in our coöperation we must thus have pathologists and entomologists. A Division of Plant Pathology has therefore been organized, and Dr. J. T. Barrett, formerly pathologist of the Illinois Experiment Station, was secured as its head. A Division of Entoomlogy has also been organized and here Professor H. J. Quayle, formerly Assistant Professor of Entomology in the College of Agriculture at Berkeley, was secured as the leading professor.