and in 1862 formally organized as an independent department. The story of the educational work of this department is told in the annual report. The Act establishing the department, defined the purpose to be, "to acquire and diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected with agriculture in the most general and comprehensive sense of that word, and to procure, propagate, and distribute among the people new and valuable seeds and plants. Since its organization, however, the functions of the department have been constantly enlarged by succeeding Acts of Congress, until they now include almost every phase of agricultural research, and a wide range of educational work. The year in which the National Department of Agriculture was established according to a report on agricultural education also marks the passage of the first Morrill Act "donating public lands to the several states and territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts." This Act provided for "the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college (in each state) where the leading

object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and mechanic arts * in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life." For these purposes the several states were granted 30,000 acres of land for each member of Congress, the entire proceeds of the sale of which was to constitute a perpetual fund yielding not less than five per cent interest. There have been granted by the federal government, under the provisions of this Act, 10,320,843 acres of land, from the sale of which there has been realized the sum of $12,744,467 with land valued at $4,858,111 remaining unsold.

The passage by Congress of the Hatch Act in 1887, granting each state and territory $15,000 for the establishment and maintenance of agricultural experiment stations gave a great impetus to agricultural education in the land grant colleges. The Morrill Act passed by Congress in 1890 increased the amount of the grant providing an immediate appropria

tion of $15,000 to each state and territory, an increase of $1,000 each year for ten years, and thereafter $25,000 annually to be applied only to instruction in agriculture, the mechanic arts, the English language, and the various branches of mathematical, physical, natural, and economic science. Fifteen states have taken advantage of this provision, while sixty-three agricultural institutions receive from federal and state governments an income amounting in all to more than $10,000,000 annually. Experiment stations are now in operation in every state and territory including the insular possessions. Both the department and the stations open their laboratories to students for research work while continuing their studies.

The work of the Agricultural Department in reaching the farmer and his family with the results of its own laboratory work, and that of the experiment stations, is ever widening. President Roosevelt in his first message, said: "The national government, through the Department of Agriculture, should do all it can by joining with the state governments and with independent associations of farmers to

encourage the growth in the open farming country of such institutional and social movements as will meet the demand of the best type of farmers, both for the improvement of their farms and for the betterment of the life itself. The Department of Agriculture has in many places, perhaps especially in certain districts of the South, accomplished an extraordinary amount by co-operating with and teaching the farmers through their associations, on their own soil, how to increase their income by managing their farms better than they were hitherto managed. The farmer must not lose his independence, his initiative, his rugged self-reliance, yet he must learn to work in the heartiest co-operation with his fellows, exactly as the business man has learned to work; and he must prepare to use to constantly better advantage the knowledge that can be obtained from agricultural colleges, while he must insist upon a practical curriculum in the schools in which his children are taught."

Concerning instruction in meteorology, the chief of the Weather Bureau reports as follows:

"A steady increase of interest in meteorological education is manifest throughout the country, as, in fact, throughout other civilized nations. In general, instruction in meteorology is considered as a part of the courses in geology, geography, or physical geography; but in two universities, George Washington and Cornell, courses have been offered in the higher mathematics and physics that constitute the fundamental basis of meteorology.

"During 1907, there were fourteen universities, colleges, and scientific schools in which regular courses of instruction were given by Weather Bureau officials, and in five or six more the matter was in abeyance. Also there were at least forty officials besides those conducting the above mentioned courses who gave occasional lectures or addresses.'

The chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry reports on the distribution of seeds for school gardens as follows: "The school-garden work which has heretofore been conducted by the office of the horticulturalist has been considerably enlarged during the present year. The work of supplying flower and vegetable