THE DEDICATION OF THE CITRUS EXPERIMENT STATION AND GRADUATE SCHOOL OF TROPICAL AGRICULTURE, RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA, MARCH 27, 1918 INTRODUCTORY NOTE The addresses here published were made on the occasion of the dedication of the Citrus Experiment Station and Graduate School of Tropical Agriculture of the University of California, at Riverside, California, March 27, 1918. They contain material of considerable practical and scientific value and are also of historical interest in connection with the development of the University and the state. The Agricultural Conference, presided over by Mr. F. Q. Story, President of the California Fruit Growers Exchange, was held in the forenoon, and the dedication exercises proper were held in the afternoon with Dean Thomas Forsyth Hunt of the College of Agriculture, presiding. A noteworthy feature of the dedication exercises included the presentation to the institution, by the Riverside Chamber of Commerce, of a United States flag and a University of California "blue and gold" flag with accompanying flagpoles. The presentation was made by Professor A. N. Wheelock, Superintendent of Schools, City of Riverside. The flags were unfurled and raised amid the cheers of the audience and the martial strains of "Hail Columbia" played by the Sherman Institute Band. The gift was accepted by President Benjamin Ide Wheeler on behalf of the University in a stirring patriotic speech. DEDICATION OF THE CITRUS EXPERIMENT STATION THOMAS FORSYTH HUNT Dean of the College of Agriculture, presiding. The peoples of the southwestern United States have builded an agriculture and a civilization that does not have an exact duplicate elsewhere in the world. It is a type of agriculture and a type of civilization which is worthy. Will it endure? Is it final? The civilizations and the agricultural experiences of Egypt, Greece, Rome, Spain, the Netherlands and the Orient have been used in its making. The Gallic and Anglo-Saxon cultures have been added to the melting pot. This station has been founded to study some of the problems which this boiling mixture has created. There are those that see this station only in terms of mottle leaf. Others see it in terms of human activities. Perhaps both points of view are correct. The two ideas may not be unrelated. We stand here today peering into the future not knowing whither it may lead us. I am not now referring to the great and temporary conflict which is raging on other shores, but I refer to the permanent problems which the members of the faculty of this station are pledged to study and if possible to solve. With a stout heart and a sincerity of purpose, we are here to dedicate these buildings and consecrate these men to truth, justice and human advancement. ADDRESS IN PRESENTING FLAGS, DONATED BY THE RIVERSIDE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE A. N. WHEELOCK Superintendent of Schools, City of Riverside American education and the American flag stand for a common ideal, the ideal of a free republic resting safely and securely on the trained intelligence of its citizens, of citizens conscious of their civic right, and equally conscious of their civic duties. There is a peculiar fitness then in making the American flag the accompaniment of American education, for in the school is held aloft the same ideal as that for which the flag stands. Our democracy was founded upon education. The forefathers saw to that. The schoolhouse followed the rifle, the axe, the flag. It has thrived upon education. The safety of Democracy today depends upon education, and because of changed conditions, upon Americanization: upon an education that brings to all the children of all the people training to meet the conditions of a workaday world and training to meet the conditions of civic life, in a word for citizenship; upon Americanization that must insist first of all upon English speech; a training that will lead the immigrant into American ideals, American ways of looking at liberty under law, American devotion to our institutions and our country's welfare. Education has been defined as "the mastery of the arts of life." It connotes not only the art of making a living, but the art of living. It means the art of living by citizens of a free republic. It means the consciousness of civic rights, of civic obligations. It means a vital patriotism as finely sensitive to duty, obligation and sacrifice as to rights and privileges and opportunities. It means a patriotism that, in times of storm and stress, in times when the nation is at the parting of the ways, in times when national ideals are in darger, hesitates at no sacrifice to secure the country's safety and welfare. Now American education stands for all that, as the American flag stands for all that. How well has American education performed its task? What evidence have we that this ideal for which it and the flag stands has been implanted in the minds of the boys and girls? In the final test, the test of real devotion and sacrifice, how does the product of our American education prove itself? Let these times of storm and danger bear witness. The call came: "The country needs you. It needs your work, your ability, perhaps your life." Like a shot came the reply and action as quick as the reply. Up from the high schools, the colleges, the universities came thronging hundreds, aye thousands of young, virile lives, willingly, gladly, eagerly offering themselves for whatever of service, for whatever of sacrifice the country might demand. There has been nothing finer in all these years of war than this response; nothing that so stirs the hearts of every true, loyal American; nothing that makes one prouder of the real products of American education than this outpouring of eager, hopeful, enthusiastic young life at this call of the country's need. The colleges have become barracks; the campus has become a training camp. What more appropriate offering at the dedication of a great institution of learning, what more fitting gift than this flag of our country which is so closely united with our American education. The flag of the men and women of long ago who gave us a nation; the flag of Washington, true father of his country; the flag of Lincoln, emancipator of a race, consummator of the immortal union of the states; the flag that today waves over the battle-worn fields of France 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 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 citizes 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."' ter 278, Statutes of California, 1905.) (Chap 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: |