Contents

The Kansas Land: From Originsto Uses, 1

From Buffalo Range to Farmland,4

Laying the Groundwork for anAgricultural ExperimentStation: 1858-1888, 8

The Kansas AgriculturalExperiment Station -- Since1888, 13The First Decade: A Programfor Systematic Research, 13From the Turn of the Centuryto 1920: Growth, 17From 1920 to Mid 20thCentury: New Dimensions, 24The Third Quarter of the 20thCentury: Research withInternational Orientation, 31The Future, 36

A hundred years ago, about a hundred years after the American Revolution, arevolution of a different type was taking place on the Kansas plains. The Americanbison has all but disappeared, Turkey red wheat was making its debut on Kansassoil, and settlers were determined to disprove the concept of the plains as a desertlikegrassland “unfit for human habitation.” Gradually they did, coping with an unfamiliarenvironment by developing a new type of agriculture and eventually transformingthe Kansas prairies into “the breadbasket of the world.”

Land, fertile land, undeniably was the key resource in that transformation, butdeveloping an agriculture suitable to a subhumid environment, where rainfall iserratic, the wind seems to blow incessantly, and trees were a luxury, has been nomean feat, even within a century. Trial and error, of course, had roles in the agriculturalrevolution, but had there been no systematic agricultural research andexperimentation, the plains of Kansas today quite likely would be a poverty-strickenarea -- reminiscent of the dust-bowl conditions that threatened our economy in the1930s -- instead of a pleasing layout of well-kept farms and pastures and prosperoustown, which together now serve not only Kansas but also many other parts of theworld.

The value of agricultural research to Kansas’s well-being was formallyacknowledged by the Kansas legislature March 4, 1887, when it accepted the termsof the Hatch Act two days after it was signed into law by President Cleveland.Kansas thus became the first state to make that move, and the next year the KansasAgricultural Experiment Station was organized at Kansas State Agricultural College,Manhattan. The creation of the experiment station made it possible for agriculturalstudies, already a major commitment of Kansas State Agricultural College (nowKansas State University), established in 1863, to be expanded and intensified.Though many Kansans today may tend to take the activities and services of theExperiment Station for granted, most if asked undoubtedly will rank it as the majorcontributor toward keeping Kansas agriculture a viable part of the Kansas economy.

But how many Kansas are really aware of the extent of the influence of Kansasagriculture, and indirectly if not directly of agricultural research, on the lives ofpeople, nationwide and worldwide? It is significant, for example, that today Kansasranks third among the states in foodstuffs (including animal feeds) exported.Currently, when world food supply is in jeopardy, Kansas farms are exporting alarge percentage of the grains they produce, and their future is inextricably linkedwith the export market. Research is now being focused not only on quantity butalso on quality of grains produced. Undoubtedly the plains of Kansas will becomeever more important as a source of food with increased nutritive value for a hungryworld.

But to understand and appreciate the experimentation process, to know howresearch and use of land complement each other, to become conscious of the influenceof agricultural pursuits on all our lives -- whether we live on a Kansas farm or workin the tallest office building in New York City -- we should first have someunderstanding of the land itself, of its origins and of prehistoric as well as historicevents that have dictated its use and development.

So let us first look at the Kansas scene from the beginning.

The Kansas Land: From Origins to UsesTo waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead ofusing it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of ourchildren the very prosperity, which we ought by right to hand down to them amplifiedand developed.

--Theodore Roosevelt, Message to Congress, Dec. 3, 1907

For as long as man has been privileged toobserve it and live on it, the surface of Kansashas been basically an inclined plane. It risesfrom east to west at 10 to 15 feet to themile, with elevations below 800 feet abovesea level in places in eastern Kansas andexceeding 4,000 feet at the Kansas-Coloradoborder. Except for the extreme southeasterncorner, it lies wholly within the InteriorPlains of North America. Within its 82,276square miles, however, this block of plainscalled Kansas displays some striking contrastsin topographic features, climate, nativevegetation, and natural resources. Annualrainfall ranges from about 40 inches in theextreme eastern part, where landscapecontrasts are perhaps most noticeable andwhere native timber is not everywhereconfined to narrow belts along stream courses,to about 15 inches in the far west, whereunder semi-arid conditions only short grassesseemed to thrive until agricultural research

found ways to turn much of it into productivefarmland.

The Four SeasonsOverall, Kansas climate is considered to

be subhumid. Yet amounts of precipitationreceived in all parts of the state vary greatlyannually and seasonally. As if conceding toagricultural pursuits, however, probably 70to 80 percent of the annual rainfall comesduring the growing season, from April toSeptember, with January generally the driestmonth and June the wettest. Snowfallprobably averages about 18 inches annuallyand generally covers the ground for no morethan a few days at a time. Most comes duringDecember through March, but there arenotable exceptions.

Mean annual temperature ranges fromabout 58 degrees fahrenheit in thesoutheastern part to about 52 degrees in thenorthwestern part, but seasonal variation is

Grace MuilenburgFloyd W. SmithLowell Brandner

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great, mainly because of the state’s mid-continent and mid-latitude location.Temperature extremes of 40 degrees belowzero in winter in one locality and of morethan 120 degrees in summer in parts of thestate have been reported. Eastern Kansashas more freeze free days than does westernKansas. (Growing averages more than 200days in southeastern Kansas and 150 days innorthwestern Kansas.)

Kansas has many sunny days, especiallyin the western half. Weather changes,however, can be sudden in all parts of thestate; several warm, cloudy days, withsoutherly winds, can be followed by severalcool, clear days, with strong westerly ornorthwesterly winds. Winds are especiallypersistent in the western part of the state,and evaporation is rapid during warm weather.Destructive storms include winter (andoccasionally late-spring) blizzards,tornadoes, and hailstorms. All can doconsiderable damage to crops and property,even though occurring only locally and lastingbut a short time.

At the least, Kansas climate in the age ofman is invigorating, which surely contributesto the vitality of the state’s plant and animallife.

A Bit of PrehistoryBut conditions as we know them did not

always prevail, and sometime in the distantfuture they undoubtedly will be drasticallydifferent from now, for the forces of Natureare ever at work attempting to achievebalance in an ever-changing environment.Though we are primarily concerned with theKansas of “now,” we should consider thestate’s prehistory, the events responsible forits present form and makeup, the better toknow how human activities can complementthose of Nature in developing the land andits resources for the greatest good of all, withland and man interacting harmoniously.

Geologists who have studied the rocks thatare the framework of Kansas tell us that thestructure has been taking shape during analmost inconceivably long time -- the earth’sage is estimated to be at least 41/2 billionyears -- and that 20th century Kansas is theproduct of both constructive and destructiveforces, operating alternately and sometimesconcomitantly. There have been manyuplifts, depressions, and rearrangements.Many times Kansas or a part of Kansas hasbeen a sea, and during such times sedimentshave been eroded by water, wind, and othernatural agents from nearby land masses andcarried by streams into the sea, there toaccumulate along with shell remains of marinecreatures and various precipitated mineralmatter, and eventually to be elevated to dryland for another cycle of erosion. Thus, to

simplify greatly the events of the state’sgeologic past, during various eras of geologictime, sediments were laid down layer uponlayer, periodically were worn down or altered,and finally were compacted into the mineral-laden rock strata that have become astorehouse of many resources coveted bymodern man.

Under today’s Kansas surface are severalthousand feet (in places 7,000 feet or more)of sedimentary rocks : predominantly shalesand clays, limestones, sandstones andsiltstones, and sands and gravels of variousthicknesses. Strategically placed in the rocksat various depths are mineral resources --such as fuels (oil, gas, coal), constructionmaterials (ceramic clays, gypsum, buildingstone, aggregates) salt, and water -- vital tothe state’s current economy. The rock strataare so arranged that they tilt slightlydownward toward the west, as opposed to theupward slope of the surface to the west. Thus,the eroded edges of the oldest rocks (thosedeposited first) appear near or at the surface

in eastern Kansas, at the low end of theincline; the youngest (those deposited last)in the west, at the high end of the incline.Going a step further in our deductions, theseassumptions seem reasonable: In differentparts of the state different types of rocksappear near the surface or crop out in thehillslopes and stream banks, and because therocks are the parent materials of our soils,the state’s soil covering reflects the characterof the underlying rocks.

Soils, of course, are the foundation of ouragriculture, but water also is essential. It isappropriate, therefore, to note that in muchof Kansas the water that accumulates inunderground reservoirs has been a moredependable source of water supply for humanneeds than has that in surface reservoirs.That is especially so in western Kansas, wherefortunately thick deposits of permeable sandsand gravels and silts underlie much of theHigh Plains (built up by sediments erodedfrom a former surface of the RockyMountains and transported to Kansas by

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eastward-flowing streams). The sands andgravels are an ideal reservoir for water.Further, surface conditions and materials inmuch of western Kansas are conducive tothe downward percolation of water that fallsas precipitation (rain and snow), therebyproviding an avenue for ground-waterrecharge. As a consequence, despite thearea’s unpredictable and generally inadequaterainfall, water for domestic, municipal, andagricultural use generally (to date) can beobtained from wells that tap those water-bearing materials. That condition will hold,however, only so long as withdrawal rates donot over the long term exceed recharge rates.

The Landscape TodayToday’s Kansas landscape was carved and

the “finishing touches” added duringPleistocene time, the last one or two millionyears. Most of Kansas was truly a plain atthe beginning of the period, commonlyidentified as the Great Ice Age, because withinthat time four, or five or more, major icesheets extended south into the United States.Even though only two of the glaciers areknown to have reached Kansas, and thosetwo extended only into the northeasterncorner, the events of that time profoundlyaffected the climate and surface of all thestate; were responsible for placing most ofthe deposits that contain large supplies ofground water; and produced almost all of thesurface soils -- the state’s most valuable singleresource. Though many of our soils areresidual, having been formed directly fromunderlying rocks, a number consist oftransported materials, and conditions inPleistocene time were uniquely right for suchactivity. Streams from the melting(retreating) glaciers spread silts over the landbeyond the edges of the glaciers’ advance,and “productive” dust storms carried sifted,sorted, porous silts to resting places farbeyond the ice sheets. The wind-blowndeposits, or loesses, are some of the mostfertile and thickest soils in the world. Theymantle the High Plains of Kansas, in placesreaching a depth of more than 100 feet; covermuch of northeastern Kansas, forming bluffs60 to 100 feet thick along the Missouri River;and occur to some extent in other parts ofthe state.

During the Ice Age all Kansas streamsbegan flowing eastward or southeastward,making their way to the Mississippi River byway of two major drainage systems: theArkansas; and the Kansas, a part of tileMissouri River system.

By and large the native vegetation ofKansas is of the prairie type. Tall grasses,predominantly bluestem, along with manyforbs, dominate the landscape in the easternthird: especially in the terraced Flint Hills,

just east of the 6th principal meridian; andalso in parts of the rolling Glaciated Region(northeastern Kansas), the Osage Plains(cuesta topography east of the Flint Hillsand south of Kansas River), eastern GreatBend Prairie (central Kansas), and easternRed Hills-Wellington Area (south-centralKansas). In the Great Plains of centralKansas -- in the Smoky Hills Region(hummocky hills in the eastern part anddissected plateaus toward the west) and thewestern parts of the Great Bend Prairie andthe Red Hills-Wellington Area (the partdisplaying distinctly mesa-type topography)-- the vegetation is mixed: tall, medium, andshort grasses, including especially bluestemand grama. In the far west, on the HighPlains, short grasses predominate:buffalograss and grama. In the sand-dune areassouth of the Arkansas and Cimarron riversin central and western Kansas and in a partof northwestern Kansas, sagebrush is found.

Native forest-type vegetation in Kansasessentially is confined to the northeasterncorner and along the eastern border (oak andhickory types mostly); the Chautauqua Hillsin the southeast (a cross-timber area), andthe floodplains adjoining streams (whichsupport scattered trees and shrubs of varioustypes).

The natural vegetation is an expressionof ecological conditions on the landscape,and in that sense is a clue to proper land useby human beings. Natural vegetation wouldslowly return on soils untended by man. Fireperiodically would be necessary to keep forestfrom occupying the area that was once prairie.Observing that the physiographic regions,major divisions of outcropping rocks, areas

of soil types, and areas of native vegetationtend to have similar borders further pointsup the wisdom of taking into account allaspects of environmental “interplay” whendeveloping land resources, whether foragricultural or other uses.

Wildlife that evolved or became adaptedto the Kansas environment was uniquelysuited to the plains habitat. Animals includedthe buffalo, or bison, which now exists onlyin captivity but once proliferated and nearlydominated the life of the plains Indians; theAmerican antelope, or pronghorn, theswiftest runner among wild animals on theAmerican continent; the jackrabbit, the hareof the plains; the prairie dog, really a groundsquirrel; and the coyote, called by some theplains outlaw. The animals – most of themmisnamed by well-meaning explorers familiaronly with the habits of forest-living creatures-- had several characteristics in common:All except the coyote were grass eaters; two,the antelope and jackrabbit, are noted fortheir speed, which they depend on for safety;all can get along on little water; and all areshy and have great vitality. In addition, amultitude of small animals, game birds,insects, and other creatures set uphousekeeping on the plains before manmoved in.

We might say that the pristine landscapeof Kansas, however forlorn it might haveappeared in broad perspective, was an activeplace by the time the American Indian cameto give chase to the buffalo and the Spanishto seek gold. Yet it baffled the early explorersand was misunderstood for several centuriesbefore being transformed into one of the mostimportant agricultural kingdoms in the world.

A pristine landscape in western Kansas.

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From Buffalo Range to Farmland. . . it is almost wholly unfit for cultivation, and of course uninhabitable by a peopledepending upon agriculture for their subsistence. Although tracts of fertile landconsiderably extensive are occasionally to be met with, yet the scarcity of woodand water, almost uniformly prevalent, will prove an insuperable obstacle in theway of settling the country. . . . The whole of this region seems peculiarly adaptedas a range for buffaloes, wild goats, and other wild game, incalculable multitudesof which find ample pasturage and subsistence upon it.

--Major Stephen H. Long, of the U.S. Topographical Engineers, 1819

When Major Stephen H. Long in 1819declared the central American plains, whichincluded most of Kansas, to be“uninhabitable,” he was not the first tomention the desertlike appearances of theregion. Zebulon Pike in 1806 thought thatthe plains might in time become “ascelebrated as the sandy deserts of Africa.”William Clark and Captain Meriwether Lewisin 1804 described that part of the LouisianaPurchase as “desert and barren.” And in 1541,after he had been to the heart of what 320years later would become the state of Kansas,the Spanish conquistador Francisco VasquezCoronado wrote to the King of Spain, “Itwas the Lord’s pleasure that, after havingjourneyed across these deserts seventy-sevendays, I arrived at the province they callQuivira.”

Major Long, however, may have been thefirst to use the term, “Great AmericanDesert,” which he wrote across a mapprepared as a part of his expedition report.

The label caught on and between 1820 andthe first decade of Kansas statehood, thosewords could be found inscribed on maps inthe country’s school geographies. (The mainbody of Major Long’s party in 1819 skirtedKansas to the north. But Professor ThomasSay, zoologist and naturalist, detoured with adetachment into northeastern Kansas as farwest as the mouth of the Big Blue River, nearthe approximate site of Manhattan, whereKansas State Agricultural College a little morethan four decades later would be establishedas one of the country’s first land-grantschools. There Say observed “the orbicularlizard, cacti and plants delighting in a thirsty,muriatiferous soil,” which convinced him thathe need explore no farther into the plains’desert interior.)

Had Coronado and his men, thought to bethe first Europeans to step on Kansas soil,chosen to do so, they might have establishedan agricultural colony in the area in the mid16th century. They were f amiliar with similar

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terrain and climate in parts of Spain,recognized the soil’s fertility and owned hardysteeds and other stock that could subsist onthe native prairie vegetation. But they hadno interest in developing the land. Findingno metals or other plunderable goods, theydismissed the region as desolate and ofnovalue. So for at least the next two and ahalf centuries, other explorers tended to shunthe central plains, which remained for threecenturies more the domain of AmericanIndians.

The American Indian in Kansas:Hunter--Agriculturalist

Of the historic Indian tribes of Kansas, atleast four practiced some agriculture: TheWichita, Kansa, Osage, and Pawnee. Theirpermanent homes were earth or straw lodgesnear valley bottoms where they raised crops;they also hunted.

In the mid l6th century, the Wichitas livingin the approximately 25 Quiviran villagesvisited by Coronado tended small patches ofIndian corn (maize), beans, squash, and a fewother garden products in the Arkansas Rivervalley. For most of their food, clothing, andshelter, however, they depended on the plainsbison, or buffalo, which they hunted on footwith bow and arrow and spear. We do notknow how long before Coronado’s visit theWichitas had lived in Kansas, but theyprobably were residents longer than any otherhistoric tribe. Hence, we may call them theregion’s pioneer agriculturalists. Before theircontact with European traders, theircultivating implements were shaped of sticksand stones and buffalo bones.

During the latter half of the 18th centurymost of the Wichitas moved to the Red Rivervalley in Texas and Oklahoma. Returning toKansas in 1863 (the year that Kansas StateAgricultural College was established inManhattan), they erected on the site of whatis now the state’s largest city a village ofgrass houses known as “the Wichita town.”Here they planted corn, pumpkins, melons,and Mexican beans, protecting their gardensby fences of upright poles. They alsocontinued to hunt buffalo on the plains tothe west. In 1867 their numbers were greatlyreduced by cholera, and on orders fromWashington the survivors were removed toWashita (Anadarko), Oklahoma.

The Kansa Indians may have lived inKansas about as long as the Wichitas, but theearliest documented Kansa village wasreported by French explorers in the early1700s: 150 lodges close to the Missouri Rivernear present Doniphan, northeastern Kansas.Explorers’ reports indicate that the KansaIndians began shifting to sites near the KansasRiver during the latter half of the 18thcentury. By 1822, according to a report of

the U.S. Department of War. they numbered1,750. The principal Kansa settlement fromabout 1800 to 1830 was near the mouth ofthe Big Blue two miles east of Manhattan.When Professor Say of Long’s party visitedthat village in 1819, he described it asconsisting of 120 earth lodges. Between 1830and 1873, the Kansa Indians had smallvillages elsewhere along the Kansas andNeosho rivers.

Until about 1815, most of the villages ofthe Osage Indians were along the Osage Riverin Missouri, but close enough to the Kansasborder so that they hunted in Kansas. Duringthe reservation period (after 1825), theywere considered a Kansas tribe.

The Pawnees lived primarily along thePlatte and Loup rivers in Nebraska, but alsoalong the Republican River near the Kansas-Nebraska border, and their hunting groundincluded much of northern Kansas west ofthe Republican. The Pawnee Indian VillageMuseum at Republic (maintained by theKansas State Historical Society) preservesthe excavated interior of one of the 30 to 40dome-shaped earth lodges of a village occupiedby an estimated 1,000 Pawnees in the 1820sand 1830s. On a hillside, the restored lodgeoverlooks the Republican Valley, where thePawnee women grew corn, beans, and squash.Garden products, dried meats, and other foodswere stored in a pit still visible in the lodgefloor, and on the floor are remains of toolsand implements, some of which are metaltrade goods.

The principal nomadic, nonagriculturalIndian tribes known to frequent central andwestern Kansas on bison hunts at varioustimes from the mid 16th century to the lastquarter of the 19th included the PlainsApache, Comanche, Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache,

Arapahoe, and Cheyenne. Of those, thePlains Apache and Comanche came closestto making the Kansas part of the plains theirhabitat. They made use of dog traction andthe travois, lived in skin tipis, ate pemmicanhunted with bow and arrow, and fashionedimplements from stone, buffalo hair, andsinew.

There is some evidence that the PlainsApaches occasionally tilled the soil, howeverhalf-heartedly, in some of the stream valleysof western Kansas. Quite likely in suchendeavor they were influenced or assisted bygroups of Pueblo Indians who at various timesescaped Spanish rule in New Mexico and livedwith the Apaches. One such community, ElCuartelejo, existed in the late 17th or early18th century on Ladder Creek in the plains-break area now a part of the park at ScottCounty State Lake. El Cuartelejo isimportant as the site of one of the firstagricultural enterprises in western Kansas,perhaps the first where there was irrigationfarming. Still evident are irrigation ditchesdug by the Indians to divert water fromsprings in the valley walls to their gardens ofcorn, squash, and gourds.

When the highly mobile, horse-ridingComanches extended their hunting rangefrom Wyoming onto the Kansas plains inthe 1700s. they became full-fledged bisonhunters. They seemingly never had beeneven semi-horticuituralists. The Arapahoand Cheyenne Indians, however, had beenhorticultural peoples in western Minnesota,but after they migrated to the Kansas plains(sometime between Pike’s journey in 1800and Long’s in 1810 ), they hunted exclusively.

We cannot say exactly when Indians begancoming to Kansas to hunt or live – maybe8,000, maybe 10,000 years ago -- or even

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exactly how all of them lived before beinginfluenced by white man. But the distributionof the historic tribes, with their varioussubsistence economies, conformed rather wellwith the several natural regions of the state,as pointed out by Waldo Wedel in AnIntroduction to Kansas Archeology: 1) TheKansa (and the Osage), who found valley-bottom horticulture a reliable food source inthe eastern third of the state, where annualrainfall generally exceeds 32 inches; 2) thesemi-horticultural Wichitas and Pawnees inthe central third, where rainfall averages 25to 30 inches annually and 3) thenonagricultural or hunting groups (Apaches,Comanches, Arapahos, Kiowas, Kiowa-Apaches, and Cheyennes) on the plains ofthe western third, where rainfall averagesabout 20 inches annually.

Up to 1854, the year Kansas Territorywas created, the Kansas population (exceptfor traders and missionaries) remainedpredominantly Indian. From the mid 1820sup to then, Kansas was a pathway forfrontiersmen en route to the far west, andapproximately the eastern third was areservation for emigrant Indian tribes fromeastern states. A number of the emigrantIndians became excellent farmers, using whiteman’s methods and implements. Most,however, continued to make huntingexpeditions to the central and western plainsuntil they were removed to Indian Territory(Oklahoma) or the buffaloes were gone (whichthey were by the mid 1870s).

No exact figures are available on Kansaspopulation during the time Indians were theprincipal inhabitants, but probably the countwas never large. A census in 1844, a yearafter the last emigrant tribe had been locatedin Kansas, revealed a total of 34,000: 1,700Kansa; 4,000 Osage; 11,300 emigrant tribes;

and an estimated 17,000 tipi dwellers (bisonhunters of the plains).

So long as buffalo abounded, the Indiansof the Kansas plains were seldom hungry.On the other hand, they exported noproducts. The more than two million peopleliving in Kansas today produce more of thebasic foodstuffs than they consume (forexample, only about 5.7 million of the 319million bushels of wheat produced in 1974were consumed as food by Kansans). Thus,we see that “American breadbasket” is moreappropriate for describing Kansas now than“American desert” was then.

But let us ponder the Indian’s concept ofand relation to the land, for whatever lessonswe may learn. The Indian characteristicallysaw the land and its resources as a gift to allmankind, something that belonged to all, likeair and water and sunshine, and hence nopart of it could belong to an individual. Inthat perspective, the Indian lived with theland. He adapted to his environment. Hetended not to abuse the land and the resourceson it nor to waste its resources and wildlife.

Homesteads on the Kansas PrairieWithin the first year of Kansas Territory,

a number of westward-bound pioneers stoppedin eastern Kansas. A few farmsteads thatyear appeared as far west as the site of themain village of the Kansa Indians “at theconfluence of the Big Blue and Kansas rivers,”once considered to be at the eastern edge ofa great inland desert. When Manhattan waslaid out near the site in 1855, herds of buffalostill frequented the area to feed on buffalograss, which had not yet been displaced bytaller grasses on the surrounding high prairies.(Professor B. F. Mudge, geologist-naturalistwho joined the faculty of the agriculturalcollege at Manhattan a decade later, observed

that for some as yet “unexplained reason”the buffalo grass was naturally displaced bytaller nutritious grasses soon after the buffalodisappeared and settlements becameestablished.)

In retrospect, it may seem providentialthat Bluemont Central College, forerunnerof the state’s agricultural school, should openits doors in this frontier town on the edge ofthe untested prairie even before Kansasstatehood. Clearly the framers of Bluemont’scharter in 1858 were cognizant of what oneof the school’s missions should be, for thatdocument authorized the governingassociation of Bluemont College:

... to establish, in addition to the literarydepartment of arts and sciences, anagricultural department with separateprofessors, to test soils, experiment in theraising of crops, the cultivation of trees,etc., upon a farm set apart for the purpose,so as to bring out to the utmost practicalresults the agricultural advantages ofKansas, especially the capabilities of thehigh prairie land.

Though many of us today almostinstantaneously associate wheat, sorghum,corn, alfalfa, and other grain and forage cropswith the “capabilities of the high prairielands,” when Kansas was an infant thosecapabilities were still unknown.

Although the Civil War slowed thewestward movement, two pieces of legislationenacted while it was being fought greatlyinfluenced the settling of the “high prairies”after the war and made possible theestablishment of an institution thatsimultaneously would give direction to a newtype of agriculture for Kansas and the GreatPlains states. They were the Homestead Actand the Morrill Act of 1862. One opened upthe plains as a part of the public domainwhere land could be obtained cheaply or freeexcept for nominal filing and patent fees;the other provided for the establishment ofland- grant colleges.

Almost as soon as the Morrill Act becamelaw, the trustees of Bluemont Central Collegeof Manhattan offered their building and landand library to the state for use as Kansas’sland-grant college. Early in 1863 the statelegislature accepted the offer, and under theterms of the Morrill Act provided for thecollege. The state received the deed to theBluemont properties July 2, 1863, and thatfall Kansas State Agricultural College beganits first year in the acquired Bluemont Collegebuilding. One of the country’s first land-grant colleges and the first to be establishedon the borders of the Great Plains, it wouldsoon also become a center for agriculturalexperiments, with special attention to theagricultural potential of the prairie frontier.

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A Land-grant School on the FrontierDuring the 1860s and 1870s Kansas State

Agricultural College thus had a unique, thoughperhaps unenviable position among theemerging land-grant schools: It had the tasknot only of establishing itself financially(through proceeds from land endowments,augmented by hard-to-get legislativeappropriations), but also of finding a levelof operation (how much classical andpractical education and how much agriculturalexperimentation) that would best serve anincoming population to the untested land ofthe western two-thirds of the state.

Settlement there under the Homestead Actwas hastened by the incoming railroads.Favored by large land grants and having alarge stake in peopling the Kansas plains,the railroads may have been overly optimisticin describing the “cheap, available land” andits productive potential, but theirpromotional literature did much to dampenthe long-held desert concept. They in facthelped make central and western Kansasappealing to two agriculturally orientedgroups that were at first at odds: cattlemenwho saw the area as rangeland and settlerswho wanted to try their luck at cultivatingthe sod land.

Especially after 1870, when plains Indiansgenerally were no longer a threat, settlers(mainly from eastern United States and fromEurope) began to surge onto the plains westof the 6th principal meridian, where the

climate was subhumid but where by that timemost of the “free” or “cheap railroad” landin Kansas lay. Already cattlemen were usingthe grasslands as open range; some even hadpreempted land along the water courses,extending their ranches onto the uplandinterior as soon as they could dig wells andinstall windmills to assure a water supply forstock some distance from the streams.

After the Civil War to the mid-1880s,Texas cattle drives to shipping points alongKansas railroads (in 1867 Abilene, then nearthe western edge of settlements, became thefirst famous Kansas cowtown) aggravated thesettler-cattleman controversy. True, somefarmers got their livestock start with straysfrom Texas herds, found the hardy Texasoxen useful as teams to pull plows to turn thetough prairie sod, or made a few dollarswintering some of the Texas stock or sellingproduce to drovers. Yet they generally fearedthe Texas longhorns as carriers of Texasfever, and they did not want those rangeanimals destroying their crops or minglingwith their stock. So as the settlers pushedwestward and their numbers became sufficientto demand and defend quarantine (or dead)lines, east (and north) of which cattle droveswere prohibited, cowtowns were forced tomove westward, finally to Dodge City.

A Kansas blizzard in 1886 killed so many,range livestock that the range cattle industrycould not recover before the crop-growingnewcomers had become at least semi-

established. Nonetheless, this agriculturalprofile for the plains even then was emerging:Ranching and farming were becoming allies,until eventually ranches having many acresof pasture would alternate with farms havingmany acres of cropland. Much trial and erroraccompanied that development, and duringmany seasons drought, grasshopper invasions,and other natural disasters plagued attemptsto find the right crops to grow on the prairiesin a subhumid climate. There was also someluck. For instance, in 1874, despite thatyear’s influx of grasshoppers, Mennonitesfrom the Volga region of Russia (where climateand land are similar to those of parts ofcentral and western Kansas) brought withthem to the Kansas plains Turkey red wheat.They planted the seed and had a good harvest,indicating wheat’s suitability to the Kansasarea.

Not all, however, was left to luck or trialand error. Scientific experiments inagriculture had begun to evolve at KansasState Agricultural College, Manhattan, wherefarmers, as well as their sons and daughters,could get practical instruction andinformation. In fact by 1875, the year thecountry’s first agricultural experimentstation was established (in Connecticut),Kansas -- still 14 years young -- was well onits way laying a foundation for the KansasAgricultural Experiment Station at its then12-year-old land-grant institution.

Covered wagons and tents on theKansas prairie.

A western Kansas homestead in the1870s or 1880s.

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Laying the Groundwork for an Agricultural ExperimentStation: 1858-1888

The soil in all our journey is superior. . . . At a point twenty miles above the Forks,I rode on to the high prairie, where the surface soil was not increased by wash, anddug with a spade twenty-eight inches into the fine black loam, without goingthrough it, the grass roots extending to that depth. Near Limestone Creek I dug ina similar position, with a like result. A small box of this soil I have placed in theAgricultural College cabinet. Where grass roots run down over twenty-eightinches, why may not corn root do the same, especially when aided by the sub-soilplow?

-- B.F. Mudge on the Valley of the Solomon, in theKansas Farmer, November 15 1869.

A geologist and professor of naturalsciences at Kansas State AgriculturalCollege from 1866 to 1874, B.F. Mudgehad a habit of spending his vacationsin the unsettled or sparsely settledregions of central and western Kansas.That was fortunate for the future of thestate’s agriculture, for on suchexcursions -- as on the one up theSolomon in 1869 -- he took note of thesoils and other natural resources andof the terrain and water courses,collected fossils and soil samples andspecimens of plants and insects, andreported on his observations and onthe farming prospects of the areas hevisited.

Mudge and other members of theCollege’s early faculty were cognizantof the climatic differences between theKansas prairies and the timbered areas

to the east. They knew that making theprairies agriculturally productivedepended on selecting crop plants thatcould grow and mature under subhumidand semiarid conditions. They knewthat new methods of tilling andhusbanding must be adopted. Theyalso recognized that to do that,scientific agricultural investigationswould be needed. And because theyaccepted agricultural experimentationas a function of their land-grant school,the Kansas Agricultural ExperimentStation (organized and located at theCollege in 1888) received from theCollege an inheritance that placed thebeginnings of agricultural research inKansas at least two decades before theStation was organized. Included in theinheritance were agricultural data andspecimens from various state regions,

BluemontC e n t r a lC o l l e g e ,1859.

Planting trees.

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some guidelines on the performancesof various crops and on livestock care,and some long-term agricultural andhorticultural experiments, as well as theStation’s first administrative andresearch staff. Major contributions canbest be assessed by describing somemajor events at the College during the25 years it operated before theExperiment Station was created.

A Decade and a Half ofBeginnings

When Bluemont Central College atManhattan, charted in 1858, becameKansas State Agricultural College in1863, under the Morrill Act of 1862, thebequest included a 100-acre farmintended for agricultural experiments.Though lack of funds delayed the startof experiments, in his report for 1867

Joseph Denison, first Collegepresident, stated, “Eighty acres are nowthoroughly fenced and forty acres areunder the plow.” Some trees were setout for windbreak and shade that year,and in 1868 an orchard -- more than 200apple trees (63 varieties), some cherryand plum -- was established. In hisreport for 1868, President Denisonnoted, “During the year 1869, aboutthree-fourths of the land now brokenwill be cultivated in an efficient manner. . . under the general supervision . . .and the other one-fourth . . . under thespecial direction of ProfessorHougham.” (J.S. Hougham was theCollege’s first professor of agriculturalscience.) Denison added that thesmaller portion “shall afford anillustration of better methods of culture,in the various departments of farming,

gardening and horticulture.”The legislature, however,

appropriated only $200 in script – whichHougham sold for $160 in currency --for all farm work in 1869. Lamentingthat and pointing out that there wasstill no barn on the farm, no College-owned team, and few implements andtools, Professor Hougham nonethelessreported:

Wheat sown in September 1868 matured welland yielded a good harvest.

Six varieties of wheat and two of rye plantedin October 1868 were destroyed by a freezein February and March 1869,corroborating the opinion “that late fallsowing is apt to prove of little value.”

Spring wheat sown March 20, 1868, yielded“20 bushels per acre of first class grain.”

Garden seeds, plants, and shrubs put out in thefall of 1868 came through the winter ingood condition.

Four varieties of oats sown March 25 yielded60 or more bushels per acre.

Two varieties of barley sown April 6 yielded52 bushels per acre.

White corn planted April 22 grew slowly butmatured well, yielding 55 bushels an acre.

“King Phillip” corn (seed from Indiana)planted May 15 matured rapidly andyielded 50 bushels an acre.

Experiments “do not favor early planting onupland.”

Also mentioned were plantings ofIrish potatoes, sweet potatoes,buckwheat, and forest trees.

In 1870 Professor Hougham reportedplanting half an acre of dwarfbroomcorn, “high in favor in some partsof this country, and we can distributeseed to those who desire to test itsmerits.” (That was the first record of

Stone barn as planned in1872. Only one wing wasbuilt, and it was used firstas a barn and then for a timeas the College’s Chiefadministration building.

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the College distributing seed tofarmers.) He also called attention tohow the associate editor of KansasFarmer evaluated five acres of wheat(planted in August 1869), which he andhis party observed in October 1869:“We went over the different pans ofthe wheat sown, this fall, and we mustsay that we have not seen better wheatanywhere. One piece in particular, putin with the roller drill, excelled anythingwe ever saw, in evenness of distributionover the ground.”

When Fred E. Miller, who had studiedat Michigan Agricultural College (thecountry’s first such school), becamesuperintendent of the farm in 1871,there were still no facilities for complexscientific experimentation. So hesuggested that until there were,“operations be confined to . . .preparing the soil, subsoiling, extracultivation, etc. and these in time willopen the way to higher efforts.”

An opening came that year with thefirst major land acquisition for theCollege. The land, acquired throughbonds voted by Manhattan Township,included 155 acres that in 1875 becamethe permanent site of the school’s maincampus. A piece of land largelyneglected, it nonetheless was fertile, asindicated by a vigorous growth ofweeds. Prompted by that action ofManhattan’s citizens, the statelegislature provided substantialappropriations in 1872 and 1873 for abarn and “to fence, improve, and stockthe state farm and develop theagricultural department.”

In his reports for those years,Professor Miller mentioned purchasesof work animals, a saddle horse, plows,and various other work equipment. Hegave rather detailed accounts ofvarious crops grown under variousconditions and farming practices inseveral fields, which he identified bynumber and acreage. Some of theprincipal crops grown were corn, oats,barley, buckwheat, potatoes, beets,wheat, rye, and clover and timothy hay.There were experiments on soilpreparation, including subsoiling and

other cultivation practices, on croprotations and summer fallow, and onusing gypsum and stable manure forfertilizer. And as an indication of hisfarsightedness, Miller emphasized morethan 100 years ago the need to study“quality” of wheat.

President Denison in his report for1872 alluded to the importance of stockraising and to sums of money that couldbe saved “by selecting the proper herdsand properly caring for and trainingthem.” Referring to the newdepartments of veterinary science andanimal husbandry, he called forobtaining “as soon as the proper timearrives some of the best specimens ofstock.” In 1873 four breeds of purebredcattle, four breeds of purebred swine,and three varieties of chickens werepurchased. Miller summarized theaccomplishments on the farm by theend of that year: “Attention . . . hasbeen given to a thorough organizationof the farm department, and to itspreparation for the peculiar work towhich it is to be devoted, viz: That ofan experimental station, at whichmethods of culture, new seeds andcrops, breeds of cattle and otherlivestock, etc., can be tested.”

Meanwhile, experiments inhorticulture were progressing, withemphasis on fruit and orchard, foresttree and shelterbelt, and vegetableinvestigations. Elbridge Gale,professor of horticulture and botany,

reported in 1871, “There are now in theorchard about 2,100 apple, pear, peach,cherry and plum trees,” and in additionthere were about 40,000 nursery treesof many varieties. Trees from thenursery were sold to the public. Aboutthat time the experimental forest totaledmore than 30,000 trees and there wereexperiments on cultivating trees, onmodes and times of grafting, and onadapting different varieties to Kansasclimate and soil.

During the College’s first decade,coinciding with the tenure of the firstpresident, there were investigationsand data-collecting in various branchesof the natural sciences -- botany,chemistry, entomology. geology,meteorology, zoology -- that related toagriculture. One of the College’s most“indefatigable workers” was theschool’s first professor of naturalsciences, B.F. Mudge. As stategeologist (Kansas’s first) in 1864, twoyears before he joined the College staff,he had made a survey of and written areport on the state’s geology andmineral resources, including its soils.As a faculty member, he continued hisexplorations during summer vacationsalong valleys and onto the plains where“staked claims” had not yet appearedor were only beginning to appear andherds of buffalo were still no novelty.

Besides collecting fossils, minerals,soil samples, and specimens of nativeplants and insects for the College

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Chemistry laboratory, 1876. Remodeled building is now (1975) Holtz Hall, center for student development.

cabinets, Mudge studied prairie floraand fauna in their native habitat andtook notes on the soil, water, and climatein relation to farming capabilities. His“lay” reports on his observationsappeared serially in issues of theKansas Farmer, and his work can beconsidered as one of the firstexpansions of agriculturally relatedresearch beyond the environs ofManhattan into the western part of thestate. Of his collections, Leland Call inAgricultural Research at Kansas StateAgricultural College (KSU) Before theEnactment of the Hatch Act (1887)wrote, “they constituted a major partof the specimens to be found in themuseum at the time the ExperimentStation was established.”

Farmers’ Institutes: A KansasInnovation

Going hand-in-hand with thebeginnings of agriculturalexperimentation in the state were theFarmers’ Institutes. A Kansasinnovation, they were started in the fallof 1868 and thereafter held annually, inManhattan or in another Kansas town,throughout Denison’s administration.The idea of the institutes originated ata College Board of Regents meetingJune 23, 1868, at which this resolutionwas unanimously adopted: “That asystem of lecturing on agriculturalsubjects at this College and itspopulous settlements of the severalcounties of the State should becontinued, so that the benefits offarming according to correctagricultural principles may bedisseminated throughout the State.”

In a letter printed in The IndustrialistNovember 20, 1905, Elbridge Galeconfirmed that he proposed the idea atthat June board meeting in 1868. Healso commented that after the first twoinstitutes, one at the College onNovember 14, followed by one atWabaunsee a week later:

It was found at the very first that itwas easy to secure the earnest andintelligent co-operation of the farmers,the work being limited only by thestrength of the Faculty to initiate it.This is the record of the first farmers’institute. In a few days our action washeadlined by the daily press of the eastsomething like this: ‘They are holdingfarmers’ institutes out in Kansas. Whynot’ The whole thing was new to us; itwas new to everybody. And if there isanything that the Kansas AgriculturalCollege can claim as legitimately herown it is the creation of the farmers’institutes.

As a matter of curiosity, topics andspeakers for the first institute were:“Relations of the Kansas AgriculturalCollege to the agricultural interests ofthe state,” President Denison;“Treeborers,” B.F. Mudge; “Culture offorest trees,” Rev. E. Gale; and“Economy on the farm,” J.S. Hougham.

In the February 1, 1872, issue of the

Kansas Farmer, the editor of thatmagazine said of the institutes, “Froma small, and not altogether promising,beginning, these meetings have growninto a magnitude and interest hardlycontemplated by their founders, at soearly a period in their progress. Wepredict for them a popularity andusefulness that shall make them a Statepride, and a recognized power forgood.”

Between 1874 and 1888developments continued in a directiontoward systematic research, eventhough retarded by controversies overthe functions of a land-grant schooland despite “hard times” brought onby grasshopper invasions, droughts,and other natural disasters.

To Train or to Educate theFarmer?

A major disagreement over policybetween new members of the Board ofRegents and the College administrationin 1873 led to the resignation ofPresident Denison, who believed thatclassical education had a place in theland-grant school. The helm then wentto John A. Anderson, who adhered sostrongly to trade-school maxims thatduring his tenure (lasting into 1878) hestressed practical or applied trainingalmost to the exclusion of classicaleducation. Following that change inadministration, early in 1874 three ofthe College’s leading faculty memberswere dismissed: B.E. Mudge, Fred E.Miller, and Dr. H.J. Detmers (who hadbeen appointed professor of veterinaryscience in 1872). That sparkedresentment among those loyal to thoseprofessors, especially Mudge, who hadbeen on the faculty the longest and hada considerable following amongstudents and the public. He also had anational reputation as a scientist; hehad been called “prince of collectors inthe West,” and in 1871 the eminentnaturalist Leo. Lesquereux said, “He isthe only truly scientific geologist westof the Mississippi River.” Replacinghim with an equally competent faculty

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member seemed quite unlikely. Afterthe dismissal of Dr. Detmers, the chairof veterinary medicine would not befilled again, regrettably, until theExperiment Station was organized.

It was fortunate, however, forcontinued progress on the farm and forpreparatory work important towardestablishing an experiment station, thatthe new professor of agriculture wasE.M. Shelton, who like Miller was agraduate of Michigan AgriculturalCollege, the country’s oldest and at thetime leading agricultural school.Furthermore, Shelton had recentlyreturned from Japan, where he had beenthe first teacher of Americanagricultural methods and systematicfarming in that country. That his tenurewould last until 1890 put him “in theright place at the right time” to becomethe first director of the ExperimentStation. Under his supervision, fieldexperiments in progress in 1873 werecontinued and expanded, especially onvarieties of wheat, corn, oats, millet,and many kinds of grasses; sorghumsand alfalfa were two importantadditions. Other experiments included:harrowing wheat, deep and shallowplowing, manuring, subsoiling,thorough cultivation and thick seedingof corn, shrinkage of wheat and corn inthe bin, use of different fertilizersapplied to wheat and corn.

Livestock investigations wereincreased. In connection with breedingexperiments, animals of College stockwere sold to farmers throughout thestate. Livestock feeding experimentsincluded estimating the value offeeding whole milk to growing pigs,comparing the value of cooked and rawcorn for fattening pigs, pasturing hogson alfalfa and orchard grass, comparingcorn meal with corn-and-cob meal assteer rations for beef-making, anddetermining the value of giving cowswarm drinking water. Some projectswere concerned with animal housing.The gestation period for cows wasstudied. And there were evenexperiments on producing carp in farmponds.

Joining the staff at the same time that

Shelton joined was W.K. Kedzie, also agraduate of Michigan State College andson of a veteran teacher of agriculturalchemistry at that school. Though heremained on the staff only until 1878,he collected and analyzed many soilsamples. Succeeding chemistsextensively studied the sugar contentof sorghums and the suitability ofdifferent varieties for producing sugar.At the request of many farmers, theyexamined corn smut to determine thesupposed poisonous qualities of thefungus.

Agricultural investigationsprogressed in a relatively orderlymanner from the administration ofAnderson (who resigned in the fall of1878), through that of acting presidentW.L. Ward, into that of George Fairchild,who took office in December of 1879.Fairchild held that training was forthose who wished to be occupied inagriculture and other areas but that thetraining should be designed “not tomake men farmers but to make farmersmen.” His was a moderate view, and by

the time the Experiment Station hadbecome a reality, the scales tended toshow a balance between the vocationaland cultural approaches, withagricultural research in properperspective.

Up to 1875 results of research werepublished mainly in the College’sannual reports, which were freelydistributed. In 1875 the principal organbecame The Industrialist, publishedweekly (at first) by the faculty, the firstissue appearing April 24. TheTransactions of the Kansas Academyof Science and the reports of the StateBoard of Agriculture also were earlypublication outlets.

An important boost to experimentalwork during Fairchild’s administrationwas the purchase of land forexperimental work, using fundsappropriated specifically for thatpurpose by the state legislature.Another forward move was thereorganization of the Farmers’Institutes, which had beendiscontinued during Anderson’sregime. An article in The Industrialistof November 26, 1881, enthusiasticallyannounced the return of the institutesand explained their expanded role:The proposition to organize a series of annualinstitutes, through which the state AgriculturalCollege and the farmers of the State may worktogether for the promotion of agriculture,has been received with favor upon all sides. . .. The professors will . . . take part in sixfarmers’ institutes, in as many portions ofthe State, provided sufficient engagement isgiven by application from local organizations.. . . The institute should be organized on theevening of one day. and closed on the eveningof the next day, giving four sessions of fromtwo to four hours each. Pains should be takento call out full discussions of the various topicspresented, so that the practical experience offarmers may be truly presented. Everyquestion has its many sides, and is betterunderstood when carefully considered in all ofits hearings. All are but learners in this widefield of research, and may profit by eachother’s experience.

The institutes were to continue longafter the Experiment Station hadbecome a reality. They in fact were toserve the Experiment Station as its maindirect route of getting research resultsto the public until CooperativeExtension was created in 1914. They

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did much to orient the farmers of thestate and their representatives towardagricultural research before the HatchAct was enacted.

Not surprisingly, then, the Kansaslegislators, in session when the HatchAct was passed, March 2, 1887, almostimmediately, on March 4, 1887, acceptedits terms, thus making Kansas the firststate to do so. But because of a defectin the bill, no federal appropriation (of$15,000 annually) was made until 1888.The Kansas Agricultural ExperimentStation, therefore, was not organizeduntil that year.

The Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station--Since 1808

The First Decade: A Program for Systematic Research

Facts, real or supposed, obtained hap-hazard, by luck or chance, have so far beenprincipally the foundation of agricultural practice. It is the dernand for betterknowledge than this -- the something known, not “guessed” -- that has called intolife the Experiment Station.

-- Bulletin No. 1, Agricultural Experiment Station,Kansas State Agricultural College, April 1888

Meeting in special session February8, 1888, the College Board of Regentsadopted resolutions organizing theAgricultural Experiment Station atKansas State College and defining thework of its several departments. TheStation was placed under themanagement of a Council consisting ofthe President of the College (ex officiochairman), the Professor of Agriculture(ex officio director), and the Professorsof Horticulture and Entomology,Chemistry, Botany, and Veterinary

Science. In addition to the Council,there were six assistants; so theAgricultural Experiment Station at firsthad a staff of 12.

In its composition the staffrepresented the major areas of theagriculturally related sciences of theday, and most of the members alreadywere involved in agriculturalexperiments at the College, despiteheavy teaching loads and a paucity offunds for such work. Now, withappropriations for research

Kansas State Agricultural Collegeand grounds north of main campus

about the time the AgriculturalExperiment Station was established.

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forthcoming, their efforts in that areacould be strengthened. So the first taskof the Experiment Station was not to“begin at the beginning” but to bringtogether “all the beginnings” ofagricultural research at the 25-year-oldCollege into a continuing, systematic,integrated program.

Of the Council members, perhapsE.M. Shelton would contribute mosttoward that goal. Professor ofagriculture since 1874, he alsosupervised the operation of theexperimental farm, which at that timeconsisted of 315 acres, was reasonablywell equipped, and was stocked withthe leading breeds of cattle and swine.Shelton had initiated, continued, andadded to agronomic and livestock

investigations on the farm. He tookpart in the Farmers’ Institutes. He keptgood records and periodically issuedpamphlets on various phases of farmexperiments in addition to releasinginformation to the public through theCollege annual reports, TheIndustrialist, and various outsidepublications.

Although their service at the Collegedid not span so many years as didShelton’s, three other members of theoriginal Council had done, in theirdisciplines, credible research: GeorgeH. Failyer, chemist; E.A. Popenoe,horticulturist and entomologist; andW.A. Kellerman, botanist. On thefaculty since 1878, Failyer workedprincipally on the sugar content of

sorghum varieties and was one of thefirst scientists to examine corn smut todetermine its poisonous qualities asrelated to losses. Popenoe, after joiningthe faculty in 1879, built on the work ofhis predecessors, giving specialattention to tests on many varieties offruits and ornamental shrubs.Kellerman, a faculty member since 1883,became known for his scientificwritings; one was a text book on Kansasflora -- for which he had access to aherbarium of plant specimens collectedand classified by Mudge 20 yearspreviously.

Only R.F. Burleigh, a doctor ofveterinary medicine, had no previousexperience at the College. Except fortwo years, 1872 and 1873, when theveterinarian Dr. Detmers was on thefaculty, there had been no instructionin that science. So the Department ofVeterinary Science was the onlydepartment that had to be createdoutright.

Even so, progress in agriculturalexperimentation in the early years hadbeen hampered not only by lack of fundsbut also because information in thethen new area of agricultural sciencewas meager. Much still depended ontrial and error. And the few persons

Farm work crew in the 1890s.

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trained in agricultural science,including those on the faculty atKansas State College, wereoverworked. All of which had worriedPresident Fairchild, chairman of thefirst Experiment Station Council. In anarticle on “Farm Experiments inAgricultural College,” appearing in theOctober 29, 1881, issue of TheIndustrialist, he had pointed up theneed for accurate and completeexperiments in agriculture, even as heposed the question of how far theagricultural college should go inprosecuting experiments. He noted that“to teach and to investigate areseparate undertakings, either of whichmay take the whole man”; he thenadded that “no means for specialexperiments have been provided, andno adequate opportunity has beenafforded, while the people have lookedfor results far out of proportion.” Yethe kept a positive attitude, predicting,“Sometime, in the not too distant future,endowed experiment stations will workout problems impossible of solution inCollege work.”

By 1888 Kansans were more thanready for an agricultural experimentstation. By then Kansas farm claimswere being “proved up” all the way toColorado, and farmers becomingestablished on self-sufficienthomesteads were asking more than

simply, “What crops shall I plant, andhow, on this subhumid to semi-aridland?” Increasingly they were seekingfrom their land-grant school help insecuring better crop varieties andimproved livestock. They welcomeddemonstrations on improved farmingpractices. They wanted to know aboutsoil conditions. They asked forremedies for plant and animal diseases,for advice on controlling insect pests.

During the first two years of theExperiment Station, Station staffdevoted considerable time to improvingfarm grounds and reorganizing orsetting up new laboratories. Emphasis,however, was on designing orredesigning experiments to fit a long-term plan. As explained in Bulletin 1,that was necessary because “anagricultural principle can only beestablished as the result of repeatedtrials under the agriculturalconditions.” Thus, attention was givennot only to current agriculturalproblems but also to the future of theStation and the state’s agriculture.Besides answering questions ofimmediate interest to Kansas citizens,Station staff accepted a responsibilityfor helping to educate the Kansasfarmer: for example, to encourage himto cultivate “not much but well,” togrow not one crop solely but todiversify; to inspire in him an attitude

toward “permanent improvements” inagriculture.

With that start the Experiment Stationstaff became pioneers in theinterdisciplinary approach towardsolving some of the state’s agriculturalproblems. Nine bulletins plus annualreports containing resumes ofdepartmental activities were issuedduring the first two years. Distributedfree to the public, they not only gaveresults of experiments during thoseyears but also summarized previouswork (if any) in the various researchareas and indicated what should beemphasized in the future. The publishedinformation partially answered andprovided background for futureanswers to such questions as:

What varieties of wheat so far tested are bestfor yield, hardiness, resistance to diseasessuch as smut and to such insects as thechinch bug?

What are best planting dates? How and whenshould wheat be rotated with other crops,pastured, cultivated? Should fertilizers beused? What? When applied and how?Which varieties suffer least fromwinterkilling?

What are the best methods of planting,cultivating, and harvesting corn? Oats?What varieties of these and other grainsare recommended for yields?

What are arguments for raising wheat inKansas? For raising corn?

Can smuts in cereal grains be controlled oravoided? Are fungicides effective?

What do experiments in cross-fertilizationof corn show ? How do fungicides affectgermination of corn?

How do sorghum varieties compare in feedingvalue for stock, for making syrup or sugar?For resistance to sorghum blight ?

In Kansas, where growing plants are whippedby prairie winds and mature stalks tend tobecome dry and brittle, is there anadvantage in storing corn and sorghumfodder as ensilage (in silos) over stackingit in the field?

What tame grasses and clovers, based on 14years’ experience, are adaptable to variousKansas regions? On what types of soil,how prepared? When should seeds besown?

What fodder plant is most likely to survive a“dry spell”? (Among grasses tested over aperiod of years, alfalfa, orchard grass, andred clover rated well. )

What are the results of garden trials fordifferent varieties of potatoes and othervegetables? What are the yields? Howshould seed beds be prepared?

Corn (10,000 bushels) harvested on a Norton County farm about the time cornproduction in the state reached its peak, 1889.

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What are the merits of natural and artificialfertilizer? When should barnyard manurebe applied? How stored?

What are the characteristics of some insectsinjurious to crops and orchards? What arepractical ways of destroying them?

What are some useful insecticides? What doexperiences in spraying reveal?

What are the common types of weeds? Howdo seeds germinate?

What is the difference in meat (quantity andquality) produced by pigs fed shorts-brancompared with that produced by pigs fedcorn meal?

Are there advantages in producing pigs fromimmature, as opposed to mature, parents?

How does grain ration, when fed along withample pasturage, affect the milk andbutter products of the dairy cow?

After Shelton resigned in 1890, theStation during the rest of its firstdecade operated under the Councilwithout a director but adhered closelyto procedures of the first two years.Through annual reports and bulletins(issued periodically) the public wasinformed of Station activities andprogress of long-term and newexperiments.

In 1890 Station agriculturalist C.C.Georgeson introduced into Kansas --and the United States -- the soybeanas a drought-resisting plant; seedswere offered gratis to farmers. Early inthe 1890 decade experiments werebegun on sugar beets as a crop for

western Kansas. An important payofffor Station research was the recognitionof alfalfa as a Kansas crop; soon seedswere being exported in large quantities.

Station agronomists didreconnaissance work on soil moistureand its conservation, and in the mid1890s irrigation experiments, usingwindmills to pump water from wells,were conducted briefly at Garden City,Oberlin, and Oakley. Station botanistsstudied grain rusts. Entomologistsstudied plant-attacking canker worms(and associated caterpillars) and treeborers, and also cattle hornflies andstable (house) flies.

Though emphasis was still on cropculture and crop varieties, livestockinvestigations continued to increase asfamily-unit farms spread across thestate and increased production of grainand forage crops merited purchases ofmore stock. Experiments in veterinarymedicine made their debut. “Loco”weed, which affected animals of theGreat Plains, was investigated, as wereother plants reportedly poisonous tostock. Research was initiated todetermine the cause of “mad staggers”of the horse and “lumpy jaw” and“cornstalk” diseases of cattle. Stationveterinarians prepared a vaccine to haltblackleg, then one of the most

important diseases causing losses tothe cattle industry. In 1897 the Stationpublished detailed accounts of that andseveral other stock diseases, includingTexas itch, Texas fever, and bovineturberculosis; treatments orpreventative measures were suggested.

Dairying had a great revival in thiscountry and Kansas in the 1890s,leading to greater attention to care ofdairy herds and to the quality of dairyproducts. In 1893 the Secretary ofAgriculture sent Georgeson toDenmark, leader in the dairy industry,to observe dairying practices there andespecially to learn why Denmarkmarketed superior butter.

The Kansas Agricultural ExperimentStation during its first decade, the endof which almost coincided with theclose of the 19th century, thusestablished a framework for futureresearch. Long-term experiments werein progress in several basic areas ofagriculture, and the framework wasflexible enough to permit additions notonly in those areas but also in relatedareas. The Station was structured toencourage interdisciplinary research,which would prove to be one of itsgreatest strengths.

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From the Turn of the Century to 1920: Growth

When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers therefore are the founders ofhuman civilization.

- Daniel Webster, On Agriculture, 1840

During the next two decades,essentially from the turn of the centuryto the end of World War 1, some newdimensions were added to Stationactivity. The center of the state’spopulation was gradually movingtoward the center of the state as farmsand farming communities appeared ingreater numbers on the western plains.In that climatic conditions, altitude, andsoils in that part of the state differedfrom those in the Manhattan area, itbecame imperative that the Station carryout research in central and westernKansas. That was accomplishedpartially by cooperating with farmerson field experiments. A more permanent

arrangement was the establishing ofbranch experiment stations: Fort HaysBranch at Hays, west-central Kansas,in 1901, on half (3,500 acres of the landin Ellis County that had been the FortHays Military Reservation; Garden CityBranch in Finney Countysouthwestern Kansas, 1907; TribuneBranch in Greeley County, far-westernKansas, 1911; and Colby Branch inThomas County, northwestern Kansas,1914.

Concomitantly, research results werebeing disseminated to all parts of thestate, through face-to-face contactsbetween Station personnel and thestate’s citizens, in publications,

Dairy unit at Fort Hays Branch Station, 1914.

Experimental calves, 1904.

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including newspapers, and by variousother means (not excluding ruraltelephone, which was beginning toappear). The number of farmers’institutes held annually at varioustowns along the railroad lines increasedquite dramatically near the beginningof the 20th century: from 19 in 1896 to150 in 1900-01. Special appropriationsby the state legislature for the institutesmade that possible. Also, in the early1900s the railroad companies beganproviding special trains equipped tocarry Station staff, along withequipment for lectures and researchdemonstrations, to towns along theirroutes; most were corn and wheatspecials, but there were at least onealfalfa train, one or two dairy trains. anda few others. In 1898 the Station beganpreparing press bulletins, or digests of

research, for release to the state’snewspapers Beginning in 1912 countyagricultural agents became an avenuefor getting to the farmers informationapplicable to various counties. In 1914,when Cooperative Extension wasestablished under the Smith-Lever Act,that division became, and has remained,the principal distributor of Stationresearch results to the people ofKansas.

Federal and state governmentsprovided more generously foragricultural research as benefits fromStation-sponsored experiments weredemonstrated and future needsbecame apparent. The Adams Act of1906 significantly increased annualfederal appropriations for fundamental,or basic, research, at that time a newconcept. About that same time the

Kansas legislature provided funds forspecial projects (the aim of one of thefirst was to find ways to destroy prairiedogs and gophers); for research at thenew Fort Hays Branch Station (one ofthe first experiments was on eradicatingbindweed); and for work at theManhattan Station ($15,000 in 1909,with substantial sums annuallythereafter).

The time had arrived for cooperativeresearch with other agencies, and somepermanent arrangements were madebetween the Kansas AgriculturalExperiment Station and the UnitedStates Department of Agriculture(USDA). Some of the first cooperativeprojects concerned range managementin Harper County, and (with the FortHays Branch): wheat and rye varieties,crop rotation and tillage practices under

Case 20-30 tractor pulling three-gang plow, summer fallow for wheat.

Deep-tillage dish plows at work, early 1900s.

limited rainfall, and collecting reliableinformation on moisture conservationand soil management in westernKansas. There were copperativeprojects with the State Board ofAgriculture on analytical studies oflivestock feeding stuffs, livestockremedies, fertilizers, dairy products,and seed testing; with the Livestockand Sanitation Commission on thestudy of livestock diseases; and withthe Entomological Commission onweed and plant-disease control.

Within the first six years of the newcentury, the Station’s administrativestructure changed from that of aCouncil with an ex officio director (J.T.Willard. 1900-1906) to that of permanentdirector, after ,which the StationCouncil essentially was dissolved. Thefirst permanent director was C.W.

Burkett (1906-1908); followed by (up tothe end of World War I) Edwin W.Webster (1908-1913); W.M. Jardine(1913-1918); and F.D. Farrell (1918-1925).

Burkett during his two years asdirector was instrumental in getting twoimportant laws passed by thelegislature in 1907: one governing thesale and inspection of fertilizers; theother, the sale and inspection of feedingstuffs. He supported another law,designed to encourage the discoveryof superior varieties or strains of wheatin foreign countries and make themavailable to Kansas farmers. As aresult of that legislation, the Board ofRegents sent Burkett on a four monthtrip to Turkey and Russia, where hecollected wheat seed from 17 sources.A Station agronomist also was sent to

Alberta, Canada, to studycharacteristics of wheat grown there(the wheat was found not acceptablefor Kansas), and a Station botanistwent to Europe to investigate methodsof wheat breeding.

Wheat already was well on its wayto becoming “king of Kansas crops.”Before World War I agronomists haddeveloped Kanred wheat variety, whichshowed certain resistance towinterkilling and rusts (wheattroublemakers) and soon wasresponsible for boosting the state’swheat production by as much as fivebushels an acre. That stimulatedStation plant breeders to intensifyresearch to develop strains that wereeven hardier, more resistant to rusts,and higher yielding. Stationentomologists intensified their studies

Harvesting wheat, nursery at Fort HaysBranch, 1914.

Laboratory force engaged in work on improving wheat by selection.

Cutting kafir corn with a Deeringcorn binder, August 1906.

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on one of the chief insecttroublemakers -- the Hessian fly.

Corn, alfalfa, sorghum, and othergrain and forage crops, however, werenot neglected; and much copperativeresearch with farmers was concentratedon soil fertility, tillage requirements, andcrop adaptations to suit various climaticconditions. There were studies on soilbacteria, coordinated with studies oftypical soils from representativeregions. A major service wasdistributing pure seed of grains andforage plants to all Kansas counties;that service became easier when countyagricultural agents became establishedin county-seat towns.

Feeding trials continued to beimportant livestock investigations;digestion, balanced rations, and animalgrowth and nutrition were emphasized.(The nutritive value of Vitamin A,discovered during that period, wasbeing studied.) Considerable attentionwas given to care of the dairy cow andmilk production; to quality of beef, andto livestock diseases. The blacklegserum veterinarians had developed by1915, if universally used, they claimed,could entirely check outbreaks of thatdisease in cattle.

During World War I, Stationresearchers remaining on the home frontjoined the national effort to find

effective ways to increase foodproduction to meet the country’s needs.By the War’s end, Station efforts had adouble focus: not only on productionresearch but also on marketing of farmproducts and on associated economicproblems. By then trends toward powerfarm machinery (and increasedproduction) and expanded roadnetworks for automotive travel (andwider distribution of farm products andgreater mobility for rural residents) wereobvious. Simultaneously, no longer alocal affair, the Station had matured tobecome a part of a national organizationwith responsibilities extending beyondthe borders of the state.

Threshing headed wheat using Reeves engine and Avery separator, from the stack, September 1912.

Sugar beets, Fort Hays Branch Station, early 1900s.

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One of the first projects at Fort HaysBranch Experiment Station: sowingalfalfa seed on fresh sod, carefullyprepared. Alfalfa 57 days afterseeding on sod. 1903 (left)

“Roundup Day” at Fort Hays Station, 1917.

Farmers attending a session of the National Dry Farming Congress at Fort HaysExperiment Station, June 1910.

FORT HAYS BRANCH (1901) Main areas of research:

Beef cattle grazing, feeding, breeding Crop management Soil management Weed control Entomology Plant breeding

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Garden City Branch Experiment Station (above). View of grounds in 1915; treesshown were planted in 1914. The Station’s first pumping plant; irrigation welldrilled in 1911.

Colby Branch Experiment Station (top photo) and Tribune Experiment Station,1914.

GARDEN CITY BRANCH (1907) Main areas of reasearch:

Irrigation Dryland farming Dairy and beef production Lamb feeding Crop improvement Weed control

TRIBUNE BRANCH (1911) Main areas of research:

Field and speciality crops Irrigation Soil and water conservation

COLBY BRANCH (1914) Main areas of research:

Crop improvement Soil and crop management Irrigation Horticultual investigations Beef cattle feeding Swine and sheep production

SOUTHEST KANSASBRANCH (1949)

Main areas of research: Soil fertility Crop science Dairy nutrition Beef cattle grazing and feeding

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Puddling reservoir, Garden CityBranch Station, 1914. Puddlingwas necessary to reduce water lossby seepage.

Pumping water for irrigation from a well near Big Creek in Hays vicinity, Ellis County, early 1900s. Acentrifugal pump operated by a steam engine, using a thresher belt.

Haying operation, probablywell before World War I.

Horse-drawn reaper, fittedwith binder.

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From 1920 to Mid 20th Century: New Dimensions

All taxes must, at last, fall upon agriculture. -- Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776-1788

Arbitrarily, we might designate 1920as the year that the Kansas AgriculturalExperiment Station grew up and enteredan adult stage of operation. By thenthe headquarters station in Manhattanhad been greatly expanded by severalmajor land acquisitions, makingpossible expansion of physical plantfacilities, with laboratories andexperimental fields and orchards for abroad spectrum of research. More than60 staff members were working on morethan 60 primary projects with manysubdivisions that crossed disciplinaryboundaries of 13 departments:Agricultural economics, agronomy,animal husbandry, bacteriology, botany,chemistry, dairy husbandry,entomology, horticulture, millingindustry, poultry husbandry, veterinarymedicine, and zoology. In additionthere were four permanent branchstations (at Hays, Garden City, Tribune,

and Colby), and in most counties ofthe state, field experiments were inprogress in cooperation with farmers.

Annual appropriations then were inthe neighborhood of $200,000, a greaterportion from the state than the federalgovernment. Station publications, notcounting annual reports, issued sincethe Station was established totaledmore than 300. A scientific attitudepervaded, and many staff members werecontributing scientific articles regularlyto the nation’s leading scientificjournals. (F.D. Farrell was still director,but when he was elevated to thepresidency of the College in 1925,Station operation continueduninterruptedly under veteran staffagronomist L.E. Call, who remaineddirector until he retired, after World WarII in 1940.)

By 1920 the land frontiers in Kansaswere gone or almost gone. So if

View north of main College campus, about 1925. Buildings (left to right): veterinary clinic; animal husbandrybarn, erected in 1914; and one of the barns used in experimental feeding.

East wing, Waters Hall.

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theStation had come of age, so hadKansas. That was fortunate, howevercoincidental, for the Station and thestate together were known entitiesentering a new phase of scientificagriculture. Trends towardmechanization on the farm, largerfarming units, and expanding marketsfor farm goods were unmistakable.Labor-saving machines steadily werereplacing man and draft-animal labor --already a farm tractor with power take-off was on the market, power-operatedmilking machines were coming into use,multi-purpose gasoline engines werebeing bought by farmers, and soon self-propelled combines would be venturinginto Kansas wheat fields ready forharvest.

Automobiles, which were becomingcommonplace, and improved roads --there were several thousand miles ofcross-state roads by 1920 -- togetherwere destined to have a dramatic effect

on farm operation, rural living, andmobility of the farm population. Asmachines and transportation networksbrought farm and town closer togetherand linked community with community,the self-sufficient family farm tendedto become obsolete. A migrationpattern from farm to instate and out-of-

state urban centers was in a formingstage. Larger farms and expandedmarkets were developing side by side.All such changes, along withassociated problems, would have adecided impact on the Kansas economyand its agricultural emphasis within thenext three decades.

As the 1920 decade opened, theStation began responding to thegrowing complexity of social andindustrial relationships that werebeginning to affect farm life. Throughthe new department of agriculturaleconomics, the state began probingsuch economic features as farm tenancy,credit, and land tenure; type-of-farmingareas; cooperative marketing byfarmers; farm organization andmanagement; and taxation as related toagriculture (Kansas was a pioneer inthat area). After the Purnell Act of 1925had increased the endowment forresearch in agricultural economics andrelated areas pertaining to rural life,Station-supported projects wereextended to include two additionaldepartments: home economics andagricultural engineering.

Alongside high-priorityinvestigations on improvements in thecrop and livestock industries were

Custom-tractor outfit for wheat smutcontrol in Sumner County, 1926 (upperphoto). Mode of travel and equipmentto control sorghum smut, Ness County,1926.

Threshing flax near Thayer, in the early 1920s, using Model T to provide beltpower for thresher.

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studies on the distribution, storage, andmarketing of wheat and other farmproducts and on the handling of farmsurpluses. Cereal investigations andflour milling were moving into prioritypositions, as were studies in humannutrition and home management, andbasic information on Kansas soils wasbeing accumulated toward building asound land-use program for the state.

To reverse the trend of half a centuryof exploitive use of land by agriculture,Station soil scientists and cropspecialists initiated a soil conservationprogram that has continued, withcooperation of the USDA. to date. Ithas evolved into a number of integratedprojects on soils and crops, with mainfocus on soil fertility, tillage, and plantnutrition. Originally, studies werecarried out principally on experimentalfields at the main station and branchstations, but also cooperatively withfarmers in various localities. To assurelongterm experimentation on varioustypes of soils, in 1923 the Stationrequested (and received) annualappropriations for work on fiveexperimental fields in southeasternKansas, where soil conditions differconsiderably from those of otherKansas regions. (Later, experimentalfields for long-term research wereestablished in addition in other stateregions.)

It was fortunate -- no, it was essential-- toward securing a healthy future foragriculture in Kansas thatinterdisciplinary studies should beconcentrated on proper care and useof land at the same time that high crop

yields per acre and large scaleproduction were major aims. In a sensethe parallelism was also ironic. Stationdirector Call, in his report for 1924-1926,commented somewhat apprehensivelyon the rapid development of agriculturethroughout western Kansas andespecially in southwestern Kansas,where a level tract of fertile sod landcould be easily adapted to powermachinery; combined harvester-threshers made it possible to produce,on a large scale and rather cheaply,varieties of wheat and other crops thatresearch had shown to be adaptablethere. Noting that climatic conditionsat that time were more favorable thanaverage, Call stated that continueddevelopment:

. . . may result in too rapid a change inagricultural practices, thus leading toundesirable economic and social conditions.Meantime, the Agricultural ExperimentStation is endeavoring to secure facts whichwill help to place the agriculture of the regionon a permanently safe and sound basis.

The time of reckoning came scarcelya decade later, when western Kansasturned into a “dust bowl” as the

country plummeted into one of its worstdepressions ever. Here for all to seewere consequences of a droughtcompounded by over-cultivation offields and over-grazing of pastures.Tons upon tons of top soil, stripped ofvegetative cover, had been borne aloftand widely dispersed by wind. Mostpersons not already converted to themerits of soil conservation soon were.And the Agricultural ExperimentStation, which by now had amassedmuch information on Kansas soils andland use, was in a position to helpfarmers solve some of their problemsand suggest ways to restore their land.

The Experiment Station providedmany data for recovery programs notonly in Kansas but also nationally, andseveral staff members were grantedleaves to work with the Soil ErosionService or the Farm CreditAdministration of the United StatesDepartment of Interior. When theBankhead-Jones Act of 1935 providedfor regional research laboratories, theKansas Station, along with other stateexperiment stations, beganparticipating in cooperative projectshaving application in particular to the

College dairy herd on fall-planted sweetclover, 1940. Pasture-improvement study.

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country’s north-central region. Withinthe next decade several Station andUSDA scientists developed amethodology for studying wind erosionby applying climatological,aerodynamic, and soil physics to theproblem; they began securing basicinformation on the role of wind erosionin the agriculture of the Great Plains.As a sequel to the project, the chiefinvestigator was granted a leave towork on wind-erosion control withshelterbelts in North China.

In western Kansas, where drylandagriculture was a way of life, the branchstations intensified their studies ontillage practices, along with croprotations and summer fallow, conduciveto conserving soil moisture and holdingthe soil in place. After the SoilConservation Service of the USDA wasestablished in 1935, cooperativeexperiments were commenced at theFort Hays Branch Station on soilerosion, sedimentation, and waterconservation as well as on thepropagation of grass for erosioncontrol. Range specialists helpedranchers establish good grazingpractices, and as a hedge against water

shortages in the future, many stockponds were built, especially in the FlintHills, with advice from agriculturalengineers and geologists.

Irrigation in western Kansaspreviously had been attempted,especially in the Arkansas River valley,and almost from its inception theGarden City Branch Stationconcentrated on growing specializedcrops irrigated with water pumped fromwells. The appearance of irrigationwells was on the rise in the 1920s, but itwas in the late 1930s and early 1940s,near the end of a long drought, thatirrigation farming began to spreadrapidly. (In 1920, about 95,000 acreswere under irrigation in Kansas; by1975, about 2,500,000.) Then irrigationexperiments became an important andpermanent aspect of research at otherbranch stations. In areas underlain bylarge ground-water supplies, asdelineated by Kansas GeologicalSurvey studies, irrigation farming(using well water) by mid-century hadbecome big business. (So big in factthat exploitation of and overuse ofground water soon could pose a threatto area economy as did unwise use of

land in the 1930s.)In the 1940s, even before the effects

of the depression of the 1930s could beassessed, World War II complicatedresearch efforts and dictatedadjustments. Stress was on providinginformation to use in producing anabundance of food and other materialneeded by the nation. Practicalapplication of research tookprecedence over basic research. Somework was of an emergency nature, andseveral departments (horticulture andhome economics especially)concentrated on victory gardens andnutritional work. Changes in researchemphasis resulted in such projects as:producing starches from grainsorghum (to replace root starchesformerly imported from the East Indies);using native and introduced plants formedicinal purposes or for potentialrubber production; and studying flaxand soybean varieties for oilproduction. In recognition of the factthat basic research would contributeimportantly toward solving manypostwar problems, certain long-termprojects were not abandoned. Some ofthe major ones were in the areas of

“Cow No. 29,” Colby Branch Station.Established world’s milk-producingrecord -- 150,000 pounds in her lifetime.

Field Day, southeastern Kansas experiment field near Moran, September 1926.

Plots at Garden City Branch Stationused in research on soil and crops,1930.

Soybeans in shock, on experimentfield near Columbus, southeastern

Kansas, September 1931.

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production and marketing economics,plant and animal genetics, crop rotationand fertility, nutrition (important tohuman welfare), plant and animaldiseases, and insects and otherpredators.

Nonetheless, during the post-warperiod up to 1950, the AgriculturalExperiment Station (with R.I.Throckmorton as director, L.E. Callhaving retired in 1946) was confrontedwith some complications in sorting outresearch priorities: inadequate facilitiesand land, difficulty in obtaining certaintypes of equipment and well-trainedresearchers, and an unusual demandfor services by the public. Some of themost obvious needs were fordependable information on marketing;ways to produce, more economically,plants and animals of high quality;finding industrial uses for agriculturalproducts; improving human, plant, andanimal nutrition; and studies on socialwell-being of rural people.

Kansas agriculture during the threedecades between 1920 and 1950 hadadvanced via technology andmechanization from many loosely knitsmall farms to fewer but larger farmscapable of producing enough food tofeed many times the state’s population.Some of the highlights of the period,as listed in the State Board ofAgriculture’s Centennial Report (44th)were:

In the 1920s: Wheat replaced corn as themajor state crop. Kansas became thelargest producer of hard winter wheat ofany political unit in the world. The firstcommercial hybrid corn was grown. Firstself-propelled combine was in use nearHutchinson. Mounted-type tractorimplements were introduced. Federal meatgrading began. Pure seed law was passed.U.S. Agricultural Marketing Act was passed.

In the 1930s: Multiple-row cultivators, cornplanters, and pickers came into wide use.Hybrid seed corn was in general use in thecorn belt. Strain 19 vaccine for Brucellosiswas developed. Diesel-powered crawlerscame into use. First hybrid hogs and firstsuccessful hybrid chickens were produced.The frozen food industry was developed.Agricultural Adjustment Act was passed.High-compression engine was introduced.Vitamin E was discovered. Shelterbelt treeplanting was started in the Great Plains.

Dust storms in western Kansas, 1935. Town shown: Hugoton.

Drifting sandy soil in northwestern Kansas (near Collyer), March 1935 (upperphoto). Sand from uncontrolled field in southwestern Kansas (near Rolla, MortonCounty), 1941. Recommended treatment: stabilize with cane cover and sow tonative grasses.

Rural Electrification Administration wasorganized. Kansas Noxious Weed Law waspassed. Phenothiazine was used to removeinternal parasites of livestock. Firstartificial dairy breeding association wasestablished in the United States. Theairplane was first used to controlgrasshopper outbreaks in Kansas.

In the 1940s: Automatic, self-tying pickupbaler was introduced. Wilt-resistant alfalfawas released. Combine -sorghums becamea major cash crop. Commercial LP-gastractors were introduced. DDT insecticidewas developed, starting an epoch in insectcontrol. Kansas law governing waterrights was passed. Organic phosphates wereintroduced as insecticides. Self-propelledcorn picker was available. Research andMarketing Act was passed. Chemical weedkillers were used in cereal crop production.Equipment to apply fertilizer in vaporform (anhydrous ammonia) was introduced.2,4D was released for experimental trialsin weed control. Anticoagulant

rodenticides were introduced. Chlordaneand toxaphene for grasshopper controlwere marketed. Kansas had more than10,000 self-propelled combines, 9,000airplanes on farms and ranches, andapproximately 100 flour mills.

Despite setbacks of a majordepression and a world war, by mid 20thcentury Kansas had achieved statusas one of the world’s leadingagricultural regions. Exports of wheatand other farm products would everafter be a must in the state’s economicwell-being. That achievement, however,would have been next to impossible --even with all of the labor-savingdevices put to use -- had the state’sfarmers not applied, thereby benefittingfrom, the results of crop and soil and

related research of the KansasAgricultural Experiment Station. AsHarold Myers, associate director of theExperiment Station at mid-century,expressed it, “The increase in cropvalue in any one year attributable tothe agricultural experiment station inwhole or in part would more than payfor the total cost of the experimentstation since the Hatch Act of 1887.”

At mid-century Kansas agriculturewas a modern enterprise. With goalsto be adjusted. And new problems tosolve. The Kansas AgriculturalExperiment Station likewise hadmodernized. And had goals to adjust.And new problems to face.

Gully, former livestock lane, in Franklin County, eastern Kansas, being prepared for tree planting (left). Same location(right), June 1940.

Stand of oats onExperiment Station

agronomy farm nearManhattan, 1947.

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Automatic hay-bale pickup andloader designed and built at Fort

Hays Station, 1946. (About thesame time the Station designedand built a self-propelled field

silage cutter that reduced cost ofputting up silage 62 percent.)

Basin-listed ground 12 hours aftera three-inch rain, Hays.

Combining Kanred wheat, FortHays Station. Kanred was theonly variety grown anddistributed at the Station between1919 and 1932.

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The Third Quarter of the 20th Century: Researchwith International Orientation

The quality concept for Kansas agriculture deserves special attention in thesetrying times. A paramount need is quality foods from quality farms. Recentdevelopments in Kansas agriculture have attested to the soundness of this concept,as for example . . . advantages of the wheat varieties of top milling quality.

--A.D. Weber in an address to the 85th KansasAgricultural Convention. 1956

Entering a modern phase ofoperation at mid 20th century, theKansas Agricultural ExperimentStation was supporting research byalmost 300 scientists from 18departments (home economics,agricultural engineering, chemicalengineering, physics, and statisticshaving been added since 1920) andfive branch experiment stations (theMound Valley Branch wasestablished in 1949). Research alsowas being conducted on more than adozen experiment fields and more than500 privately owned farms in 95 of thestate’s 105 counties. Primary projectstotaled well over 200; included were anumber of long-term projectscooperative with the United States

Department of Agriculture, otherfederal agencies, several state agencies,and experiment stations in thenorthcentral region and in the GreatPlains (stimulated by the Marketing Actof 1946). Experiment Stationpublications were averaging about 20a year, and more than 100 scientificarticles based on Experiment Stationresearch were appearing annually innational scientific journals and othersources.

The operating budget had almostreached and soon would exceed $2million. The complexities of modernagriculture made it imperative tobroaden the scope of research and toinitiate new programs, which in turnrequired periodic if not almost

Farm in SalineCounty, central

Kansas, 1975.

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continuous expenditures for facilitiesand improvements, equipment, and landacquisitions. Station land holdings forresearch and buildings to houselaboratories, offices, and livestock hadincreased greatly since 1888. In 1950the Station had headquarters in acompleted wing of Waters Hall, whichwas being added to at the time andwould have some permanency as theStation’s main administration building;it is still serving that purpose in 1975.(In 1952 Arthur D. Weber succeededR.I. Throckmorton as director; in 1956Glenn H. Beck succeeded Weber; in1962 Peairs Wilson succeeded Beck;and since 1965 Floyd W. Smith hasbeen director.)

If not at the beginning of the 1950s,then by the end of that decade, Kansasfarms had made an almost complete shiftfrom animal to mechanical power. (TheState Board of Agriculture ceasedtabulating horses and mules on Kansasfarms in 1960.) With machine power forfarming came increased application ofscience and technology to cropproduction and livestock raising. Ashis capabilities to manage largeracreages to produce more food and feedgrains and meat and other farm goodsincreased, the farmer sought -- in factwas compelled to seek to offset capitalexpenditures and increased operatingcosts --wider markets for his farmproducts. Inevitably small farm unitscombined into larger farm units to formmodern, commercial operations servingat first national and then internationalmarkets. (By 1975 Kansas farms haddwindled to about half the number in1920. Moreover, Kansas farms todaycan produce enough to feed more than70 million people, about twice thecapability of 1920. In that thepopulation of Kansas in the mid 1970sis scarcely 2,300,000, and in that thedomestic market is relatively stable, theworld must be the Kansas farmer’smarket for a certain percentage of hisproduce. )

Kansas has ranked second only toTexas in cropland acreage at least since1920 and has consistently been theleader among states in wheat

production and flour milling. Inaddition the state has maintained highrankings in other crop productions andagricultural pursuits. Kansas soils,terrain, and climate are conducive tothe production of a variety of grainsand forage crops, and Kansasrangelands contain some of the world’smost nutritive native grasses. Thoseobservations suggest that Kansas’swelfare will continue to depend mainlyon agriculture and agriculturally relatedindustries. That state of affairs alsomeans that during the latter half of thiscentury foreign markets for wheat andcertain other major farm products mustbe developed and maintained. That inturn requires greater sophistication offarming practices, greater attention toefficiency of production and marketing,as much attention to research onquality as on yield potential of product,constant effort to maintain soil fertility,continued control of plant and livestockdiseases and pests, and activeprograms to conserve soil and water.

In the 1950s farmers increasinglybecame aware of the value of fertilizers.That in turn intensified ExperimentStation research on types of fertilizersto use for various crops, when to applythem, at what rates, and how.

That the unpredictability of weatherhas to be taken into account wasforcibly demonstrated in the 1950s. In1951 Kansas had one of its worst floodsin history, but before the decade was

over there was a drought reminiscentof the 1930s. The need to predict theoccurrence of such natural events andto cope with them emphasized theimportance of long-rangemeteorological studies. Increased useof water for irrigation (about 300,000acres were irrigated in 1950, more thanthree times that in 1960 and by the mid-1970s more than double that of 1960)underscored the urgency ofinvestigations on water-use efficiency.Simultaneously there was a clearresearch responsibility to help devisea system of flexibility of land use tocope with economic and weatherchanges.

Though the state’s population hadbeen gradually increasing over thedecades and in 1955 passed the two-million mark, farm consolidations andmechanized agriculture triggered someoutmigration, especially of rural farmyouth who, no longer needed on thefarm, were being enticed elsewhere toseek employment. That observationalone pointed up the need for researchto help develop agriculturally relatedindustries within the state; to integrateagricultural production with processingand distribution; to seek new uses forfarm products and new markets; tostudy rural institutions and populationtrends and sociological aspects of ruralliving; to find ways to keep ruralfamilies fully employed.

Harvesting sorghum at Station’s agronomy farm, near Manhattan, 1970s.

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Not overlooked was the increaseduse of oil and gas and othernonrenewable fuel resources requiredto keep farm tractors and combines andvehicles of transportation moving, farmequipment working, and homes heated.Station scientists, anticipating the daythat traditional resources would begone or in short supply, initiatedresearch to develop substitute sources.

Paralleling the farm shift fromindependence to interdependence, arevolution that introduced agribusinessinto the state’s farming schemes, theKansas Agricultural Experiment Stationin the 1950s and 1960s strengthenedprograms in basic research. That wasnecessary to provide new facts anddevelop new tools to solve practicalproblems associated with the state’s

new type of agriculture. The “quality”concept became ever more importantin research, particularly in grainresearch, with increasing emphasis oncereal chemistry in connection withflour milling and bread baking. Inrecognition of the importance of cerealgrains in Kansas agriculture and thevalue of cooperative research, the U.S.Grain Marketing Research Center was

Plant pathologist collecting wheat-leaf rust spores for study.(Wheat losses from leaf rust have been considerable.)

Measuring stomatal resistance at Station’s agronomy farm.

Electron micrograph of Banks grassmite, about 300 times actual size. Themite attacks corn and other crops. Useof the scanning elctron microscopegreatly aids research.

Genetically superior black walnut treein natural forest on Fort LeavenworthReservation. Twigs from the 55-yearold tree are being propagated atKansas State University’s seed orchardnear Milford Reservoir.

located in Manhattan in the mid 1960s.Its location has facilitated research inevaluating quality of grain, improvingmilling techniques, storing grain, andimproving grain handling andtransportation.

In the mid-1950s two not unrelatedhappenings, the AID program and theSoil Bank Act, had an impact onExperiment Station research. In 1955Kansas State University and four otherAmerican universities became involvedin an overseas technical assistance

program under an Inter-UniversityContract to assist several colleges ofagriculture and veterinary medicine andresearch institutes in India. That wasthe beginning of the internationalagricultural program at the universityin connection with the Agency forInternational Development (AID). Theprograms since have supportedresearch teams not only in India butalso in several underdevelopedcountries in Africa and South Americaand from the beginning have involvedStation participation.

In 1956, when grain surpluses weremaking readjustments in land useimperative, Congress enacted the SoilBank Act: to help farmers reduce theproduction of excessive supplies ofagricultural commodities and to help in

carrying out soil and waterconservation measures on the land.Both the international developmentprogram and the Soil Bank Act hadinternational implications for Kansasagriculture and agricultural research.

By the 1960s there were manyevidences of how research of theKansas Agricultural Experiment Stationwas benefiting the state, not only inmarketable farm products but also incontributions to industrialdevelopment. An estimated 37 percentof all workers in the state wereemployed in farming or agriculturalindustries. Throughout the 1900decade and into the 1970s, efficiencyof agricultural production wasapparent, and consumers werebenefiting from an abundance of high-

Triumph wheat variety.

Wheat variety test plots. Triumph 64 compared with Eagle, Kansas varietydeveloped in 1970.

Modern wheat field, Pawnee County, western Kansas.

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quality food at low cost. Grossagricultural income in Kansas hadexceeded $4 billion by 1973. Net farmincome in the early 1970s improved,with cash income from internationalsales of foods a major factor in thatimprovement. International marketingof wheat in the early 1970sdemonstrated the importance ofmaintaining such sales, and therealization that two out of every threebushels of Kansas wheat must bemarketed abroad was accepted byKansas researchers as both a challengeand a hope.

To allude to the Experiment Station’srole in wheat research, new varieties(Cloud and Sage being among thenewest) developed by Station plant-breeding and improvement programshave been largely responsible forincreasing average yields per acre fromless than 16 bushels in the 1940s tomore than 34 bushels per acre in the1970s. Of the $1.3 billion Kansasrealized from its 1974 wheat crop, forexample, Experiment Station researchamounted for about $300 million -- anamount that alone exceeds all stateappropriations to Kansas StateUniversity since its founding in 1863.

Other gains in crop-productionefficiency resulting from Stationresearch could be cited. For example,corn yields seldom averaged as muchas 40 bushels an acre before 1960, butthanks to Station-sponsored testingprograms and release of new hybrids,yields per acre since 1960 have doubled.Grain sorghum, generally averagingunder 30 bushels an acre before 1960,likewise because of new hybrids, hasgreatly increased in annual yields - toan average of 60 bushels an acre in 1972.

Besides emphasizing the importanceof international marketing of wheat(and other grains) and efficientagricultural production, the ExperimentStation had several other prioritiesduring the first two bienniums of the1970s. Attention was given to:protecting the environment and naturalresources (including research todemonstrate that agriculturalproduction can be accomplished withrelatively small amounts of pesticides);efficient meat production; controllingsuch pests as the alfalfa weevil andsouthwestern corn borer; and ruraleconomic development (includinganalysis of impract of changes of taxstructure on financing state and local

government units and of factorsaffecting the living of disadvantagedfamilies).

Much effort was expended onconserving soil and water. Thatconcern is not new, as evidenced bythe creation of a number of watersheddistricts since the mid 1950s, of theWater Research Institute in 1964, andof the Evapotranspiration Laboratoryin 1968. Increased use of ground waterfor irrigation in western Kansas, wherein places water is being pumped fromwells faster than the undergroundreservoirs can be replenished, however,adds urgency to the concern.

The Russian-American wheat deal,food shortages aggravated by naturaldisasters in underdeveloped countries,the energy crisis, and other events inthe 1972-1974 biennium elevated someother ongoing research to the fore:especially studies on nutrition ofvarious foods for human consumption,including high-protein cereal grainsand forage crops, and the attempt toconvert animal and other agriculturalwastes into usable energy resources.

In 1974 Kansas agriculture, thestate’s most important industry,contributed $12 billion to the Kansaseconomy. And the Kansas AgriculturalExperiment Station, the state’s largestresearch agency, served that industry(represented by about 85,000 farm unitsand associated production andmarketing agencies and processors ),and all state citizens as well, on abudget of less than $12 million (only athousandth of the amount contributed

Important research in grain science isdirected toward improving bakingquality of bread and other cerealproducts.

Elevators at Hutchinson (shown here)and elsewhere in Kansas wheat beltprovide storage for millions of bushelsof wheat.

by agriculture to the state’s economy).The Kansas Agricultural Experiment

Station, which began in 1888 with astaff of 12 scientists from sixdepartments, in 1975 has a researchstaff of more than 400 representing 33science departments in six colleges,five branch stations, and 13 experimentfields. More than 600 research projects,many divided into sub-projects andincluding many disciplines, currentlyare in progress. Station publications,counting from the beginning, havetotaled more than papers in scientificjournals and research papers haveexceeded 10,000.

That brings up to date the status ofthe Kansas Agricultural ExperimentStation, officially 87 years old in 1975but including more than 100 years ofcontinuous research.

Now what of the future?

The Future

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as inwriting a poem.

-- Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery, 1901

No one can predict precisely thefuture for agricultural research. It ispossible, however, to examine currentissues and major concerns in an attemptto delineate possible courses of actionfor the remainder of this century.

Energy CrisisAdvent of the so-called energy crisis

in 1973 presented to agriculturalresearchers the greatest challenge todate. Previously gains in productionefficiency came about mainly becauseof greater and greater use of fossil fuel

reserves. In effect, energy was literallysubstituted for land resources and forboth man and animal power.

Prospective total loss of natural gassupplies and reduced availability ofgasoline and diesel fuel presentagriculture with a “brand new ballgame” as U.S. land-grant agriculturalstations complete their first century ofresearch. Loss of those “cheap” energysources removed the most importanttool that production agriculturalresearchers had.

Basically, we have seen the

Irrigating corn,Osborne County, 1975.

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disappearance of cheap nitrogenfertilizer and of low-cost drying (alfalfadehydration and grain drying). At thesame time increased costs have beenapplied to processing food, and low-cost livestock feed has become lessavailable.

Reduced availability of power fuelsand higher costs occasioned bydependence on imported petroleumcompel us to seek ways to reduceenergy expenditures. In the near future,it appears that we will substituteelectrical energy for both natural gasand petroleum derivatives. But we must

increase efforts to develop alternativeenergy sources to be used insynthetically fixing nitrogen forfertilizers. While coal is neither socheap an energy source or so easy tomanage, it seems a likely candidate forfixing nitrogen. And through researchwe also hope to provide synthetic fuelgases that can be substituted fornatural gas in many applications.

Production Agricultural ResearchGreat challenges confront

production researchers. Withproduction capability exceeding

availability of many kinds of necessaryinputs, the striving for higher cropyields and animal grain is losing appeal.

Production research undoubtedlymust undergo major changes inresource allocation. Attempts toachieve higher crop and livestockproduction simply to establish newrecords appear to be ending.

Production research logically will bedirected toward protecting plant andanimal production to insure maximumeconomic returns with minimuminvestment in production inputs.

Beef and swine researchcenter, AgriculturalExperiment Staion,Manhattan, 1975.

Poultry-research unit onExperiment Station grounds,Manhattan, 1975.

Experiment Station’s agronomy-research farm southwest ofManhattan, 1975.

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Environmental ProtectionEven before the energy crisis was

recognized, environmental protectionwas a major concern. Now that thecrisis has become evident, concern hasintensified worldwide; the UnitedStates and other countries are re-examining, for example, theenvironmental aspects of coal as aprimary energy source.

Water quality in Kansas streams andreservoirs, sediment dislodgment andtransport in streams, animal-wastedisposal, and contamination of soil,water, and food with residues of lethalpesticides concern all of us. It is clearthat increasing emphasis in futureresearch programs will have to beplaced on such key issues as:

1. Controlling and alleviating nonpointpollution.

2. Developing better systems to controlfeedlot runoff.

3. Substituting more animal wastes asan alternative to high-cost fertilizers.

4. Using other than lethal pesticides tocontrol insects and other pests.

5. Breeding varieties and hybrids withgenetic resistance to insects anddiseases.

Kansas already has established itsreputation for coping effectively withseveral of those issues. But futureefforts must be intensified andbroadened.

Feeding the WorldMany words have been spoken about

the capability of the United States tobring about solutions to world hunger.All too often little indepth perceptionpreceded such statements. We needrealistic answers to many questions,including the following:

1. How many persons can Kansasagriculture realistically feed?

2. How do Kansans perceive that theyshould allocate precious energyresources?

a. to produce food for the world, b. to supply human-comfort needs

at home (for heating in winter orcooling in summer),

c. to produce nitrogen fertilizer toincrease the world food supply?

3. How much can Kansans produce ifthey are insured an adequate profit?

4. How much will Kansas be expectedto contribute to foreign assistance?

5. Will Kansas be producing food forpart of a world food reserve? If so,who will control the reserve?

International Marketing

Experiences of the last three years(1973, 1974, and 1975) have madeKansas agricultural producersextremely conscious of new concepts:

They have come to appreciatethat “marketing” does indeedrelate to net profits on the statescene.They appreciate that “orderlymarketing” means better returnsto the producer.They have recognized thatKansas agriculture plays aworldwide role in helping theUnited States achieve a positivetrade balance.They recognize that internationalgrain sales, especially those ofwheat, have brought new ruraleconomic development to theGreat Plains.

Thus, we need to ask over and overquestions that relate to allocatingresearch resources, towardaccomplishing all that we can to insurethat Kansas and Kansas communitiescontinue to benefit from the state’s rolein national and international foodproduction.

Human Social Concerns

Human concerns have received moreattention during recent years than everbefore. No doubt that trend willincrease, so the human factor will be

an important variable in all research.

By substituting land and machinesfor human labor, we eliminated slaveryand nearly eliminated drudgery fromrural America. In the process we movedmany agricultural jobs from ruralAmerica to its industrialized cities.From the cities then came machines,fertilizers, pesticides. and othersubstitutes for animal and human laboron our farms. The substitution alsosent our raw food products tometropolitan centers to be processed,packaged, and then distributedthroughout the land.

Early in this century Carl Sandburgdescribed Chicago as “Laughing thestormy, husky, brawling laughter ofYouth, half-naked, sweating, proud tobe Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker ofWheat, Player with Railroads andFreight Handler to the Nation.”

But while we seemed to be improvingthe quality of human life by eliminatingslavery and drudgery from ruralAmerica, the quality of life soon beganto deteriorate in our great cities.

Now, instead of bragging about ourgreat cities, we worry about their future.Many people in them would prefer towork in less-congested areas --wheregrass, trees, animals, open space, andsounds of nature can be substitutedfor city noises, tensions, traffic mazes,and concrete -- in the hope of improvingthe quality of life for themselves andtheir children. People in smaller placesprefer to live outside congested areasto the extent that they accept lowersalaries and wages than are paid forthe same work in the congested areas.The difference in quality of life isimportant to them. Likewise, quality oflife is becoming increasingly importantto researchers at land-grantuniversities.

Probable topics for future researchthat will influence quality of life inKansas are both numerous and varied.They likely will include:

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Rural-urban relationships.Nutritional quality of institutional

foods.Land-use zoning.Ways to solve civic and community

problems.Taxation to provide local services.Plant genetics to improve quality and

nutritive value of foods.Revenue sharing.Low-cost, nutritious meals.Rural industrialization.Rural housing.Family gardens.Provision for medical and other needed

services.Use of textiles (clothing) to conserve

energy in homes.Population shifts.Clothing for comfort, satisfaction, and

safety from fire.Delivery of continuing education.Indicators of quality of life.

KANSAS AGRICULTURALEXPERIMENT STATIONSUPPORTS RESEARCH IN:

.................................Agricultural EconomicsAgronomyAnimal Science and IndustryBiochemistryBiologyChemistryComputer ScienceDairy and Poultry SciencesEconomicsEngineering -------------------------EntomologyGeologyGrain Science and IndustryHome Economics -------------------Horticulture and ForestryPhysicsPlant PathologyPolitical ScienceSociology and AnthropologyStatisticsVeterinary Medicine ---------------

Human Nutritional Concerns

While much attention will be devotedto world food requirements, additionalemphasis also will have to be devotedto nutritional improvement of foodconsumed by various components ofsociety affluent or otherwise. Asvarious other countries develop and asbetter understanding of needs results,the following concerns likely willemerge:

Meeting total caloric requirements.Protein adequacy.Improved protein quality.Nutritional improvement of cereal-

based diets: Improved amino acid balance. Fortification with superior proteins.Possible substitution of vegetable

proteins for significant portions ofanimal protein, including both meatand milk.

Recovery of higher percentages ofcereal kernels in the milling process.

Development of alternative marketclasses of wheat.

Utilization of whole-wheat kernel toinsure adequacy of fiber.

Search for other plant protein sources.Development of new cereal hybrids.

Agricultural EngineeringChemical EngineeringNuclear Engineering

Clothing and Textiles andInterior DesignFamily and Child DevelopmentFamily EconomicsFoods and NutritionInstitutional Management

Diagnostic LaboratoryInfectious DiseasesPathologyPhysiological SciencesSurgery and Medicine

Conservation of NaturalResources

Agriculture generally has exploitednatural resources. As already noted,accelerated use of fossil fuel reserveshas been correlated with reduced useof land and animal power. Likewise,ground-water reservoirs in western andsouth-central Kansas have been usedfor full irrigation rather than for theminimum water needed for effectivecrop production. Adapting to analternate crop and fallow system forwheat production has done much tostabilize Kansas as the world’sforemost producer of hard red winterwheat.

Can stable agriculture be continuedin Kansas? If the answer is to bepositive, we must concentrate on suchobjectives as:Managing ground-water supplies

wisely.Achieving fullest possible benefits from

natural precipitation.Developing better understanding of

evapotranspiration.Remaining alert to uses of solar energy

and wind power.Developing alternative energy sources

from coal, from the biomass, andespecially from animal wastes.

Applied versus Basic Research

Comparative allotments of resourcesto applied and basic research (or todirect and indirect approaches toneeded knowledge) have beendiscussed for many years. It has beengenerally agreed that somewhat lessthan a third of Kansas agriculturalresearch qualifies as basic. Even withthat rather limited allocation, manybelieve that too much effort is beingdiverted from practical applications.

There is evidence that federalagencies, which provide about 10percent of the station’s current researchobligations in sponsored projects, areturning more and more to appliedresearch. No doubt that is in responseto suggestions from Congress -- a trend

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that quite likely will continue for sometime.

On the other hand, however, with theadvent of numerous new crises andconcerns, it is becoming more obviousthat basic research will be needed.Otherwise, opportunities for appliedresearch will be reduced. Knowledgemust precede its direct application toimproving the human condition. Ittherefore seems probable that basicresearch will become even more evidentin the near future.

Agricultural scientists, starting theirsecond century of research in land-grant experiment stations, are facedwith their greatest challenge ever: theenergy crisis, which is devastating toconsumers, businesses. andgovernmental units. However, theunfavorable circumstances could beturned into an asset for Kansas inrelation to other states.

An Economic Advantage

As food becomes more importantinternationally and nationally, statesthat produce energy efficient crops andanimals will have a comparativeeconomic advantage. Only Texas hasmore cultivated land than Kansas.Kansas crops are among the most

energy-efficient grown anywhere.Kansas’s efficient use of energy in foodproduction provide opportunities notonly for farmers and ranchers but alsofor firms that provide inputs foragriculture and those that process anddistribute agricultural products.

Already the long out-migration ofcitizens from Kansas has reversed.Forty-five Kansas counties that hadbeen steadily losing population noware gaining. Research and developmentprograms to keep agriculture andindustries related to agriculture bothenergy- and labor-efficient shouldprovide many new opportunities inKansas -- all related to improvinghuman conditions here and abroad.Energy used in transporting wheat, forexample, suggests that we shouldprocess more of it in Kansas and shipthe finished product. Our meatpackingplants have demonstrated economiesin processing near the point ofproduction -- with tremendouseconomic benefits to Kansas. Becauseof the energy crisis, segments of ourmeat industry demand expandedresearch now. On rangeland, livestockare the most efficient users of energyKansas has, but in feedyards they areheavy users of energy. Irrigated crops,which stabilize feeding, also are heavy

users. Research on irrigation only, dripirrigation, and ways to increasefeedyard efficiency are neededimmediately.

Using only enough irrigation waterto stabilize crop production, rather thanto produce highest yields possible,appears to be both wise and necessaryfor the future.

The Search for Efficiency

Our search for crops that use solarenergy, water, and plant nutrientsefficiently must be expanded andaccelerated.

Energy and food shortages aroundthe world present a bigger challengenow than turning a “desert” into abreadbasket did 100 years ago. We facethe future with a broad scientific base -- thanks to our predecessors who sawthe need to establish agriculturalexperiment stations. Emulating ourearly scientists, by applying andbuilding on accumulated knowledge,should permit us to continue to servesociety well and to reap both personalsatisfaction and economic benefits aswe enter the second century of land-grant experiment stations.

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Photo credits: Primarily files of KansasAgricultural Experiment Station and ofCooperative Extension but also of KansasState University Photographic Services andSpecial Collections, Farrell Library; KansasState Board of Agriculture; and Kansas StateHistorical Society.

Contribution No. 141. Office of Vice President for Agriculture, Kansas AgriculturalExperiment Station, Manhattan 66506.

Publications and public meetings by the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station areavailable and open to the public regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, orreligion.