Planting the Seeds of Research : How Americas Ultimate Investment Transformed Agriculture 2019955637

Table of contents :
Cover
Front Matter
Half-title
Title page
Copyright information
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of Tables
Preface and Acknowledgments
Chapters Int-6
Introduction The Anatomy of The Ultimate Investment
Chapter 1 Uplifting American Agriculture: Experiment Station Scientists and the Office of Experiment Stations in the Early Years After the Hatch Act
Chapter 2 Higher Education for an Innovative Economy: Land-Grant Colleges and the Managerial Revolution in America
Chapter 3 Arming Agriculture: How the Usda’s Top Managers Promoted Agricultural Development
Chapter 4 Transatlantic Travails: German Experiment Stations and the Transformation of American Agriculture
Chapter 5 European Agricultural Development and Institutional Change: German Experiment Stations, 1870–1920
Chapter 6 The Managerial Revolution and the Developmental State: The Case of U.S. Agriculture
End Matter
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

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Planting the Seeds of Research

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Planting the Seeds of Research How America’s Ultimate Investment Transformed Agriculture

Louis A. Ferleger

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Anthem Press An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company www.anthempress.com This edition first published in UK and USA 2020 by ANTHEM PRESS 75–​76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK and 244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA Copyright © Louis A. Ferleger 2020 The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Library of Congress Control Number: 2019955637 ISBN-​13: 978-​1-​78527-​262-​2  (Hbk) ISBN-​10: 1-​78527-​262-​4  (Hbk) ISBN-​13: 978-​1-​78527-​265-​3  (Pbk) ISBN-​10: 1-​78527-​265-​9  (Pbk) This title is also available as an e-​book.

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To William Lazonick and Jay Mandle, with gratitude

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CONTENTS

List of Tables

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Preface and Acknowledgments

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Introduction: The Anatomy of The Ultimate Investment

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1. Uplifting American Agriculture: Experiment Station Scientists and the Office of Experiment Stations in the Early Years after the Hatch Act

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2. Higher Education for an Innovative Economy: Land-​Grant Colleges and the Managerial Revolution in America

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3. Arming Agriculture: How the USDA’s Top Managers Promoted Agricultural Development

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4. Transatlantic Travails: German Experiment Stations and the Transformation of American Agriculture

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5. European Agricultural Development and Institutional Change: German Experiment Stations, 1870–​1920

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6. The Managerial Revolution and the Developmental State: The Case of U.S. Agriculture

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Bibliography

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Index

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TABLES

1.1 Distribution of U.S. experiment station experiments, by region, 1892–​1909 (percentage) 1.2 Distribution of experiment stations with regions and the United States, 1892–​1909 (percentage) 1.3 Distribution of experiment station experiments within regions and the United States, by periods (percentage) 2.1 Percent of 17-​year-​old population graduating from high schools 2.2 Actual and projected enrollments by course in land-​grant colleges, 1894–​1914 6.1 Total farms and acreage, United States, 1890–​1990 6.2 Farm output per labor-​hour, 1910–​86 6.3 Cooperative extension funds, by source, 1915–​88 6.4 Federal agricultural research organizations, 1862–​1953

11 12 21 32 35 81 82 83 87

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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In 1887, the U.S. Congress declared that “national prosperity and security” depended on “a sound and prosperous agriculture and rural life.” To this end, the Hatch Act promised to make it “the policy of the Congress to promote the efficient production, marketing, distribution, and utilization of products of the farm as essential to the health and welfare of our peoples.” The Hatch Act was just one of myriad ways in which the American developmental state turned the United States into the fertile breadbasket of the world. The rise of American agricultural supremacy is a fascinating story, but it was no accident. Nor was it a consequence of the “natural” forces of free market competition. Instead, through a series of legislative acts that forged a collaborative relationship between the private sector, educational institutions, and governmental agencies at all levels, the American developmental state unleashed the full potential of American agriculture to ensure, as the Hatch Act promised, “the health and welfare of our peoples.” Over the last four decades, I have explained how the developmental state fostered agriculture’s organizational foundations in articles about American agriculture. These articles are collected here in one place for the first time. The articles included in this volume appeared in various forms as presentations and published essays. Over the same period that I wrote them, American history survey textbooks have insufficiently described the full story of how America transformed its agricultural sector into an agricultural powerhouse. This is a paradox, because historically the vast majority of the world’s population has been farmers. Therefore, a society’s move from predominantly countryside to predominantly urban marked a major transition, and not until 1920 did the United States rank as less than 50 percent rural. If a unifying theme unites the following essays, it is that this transition was predicated on an active role for the state in facilitating the growth of organizations that conducted research critical to the success of U.S.  agriculture. That is, the developmental state planted the seeds of research. The story I tell focuses on the administrative history of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Office of U.S. Experiment Stations, and

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PLANTING THE SEEDS OF RESEARCH

State and Regional Experiment Stations. The USDA and its agencies worked tirelessly to improve American agriculture. Their efforts transformed the agricultural sector and contributed significantly to high levels of agricultural productivity. As a result, American consumers could purchase food at lower and lower prices. American farmers, however, were not as fortunate as American consumers. As agricultural productivity increased because of improved technology and food processing many farmers left farming and moved to urban areas. The plight of American farmers is an important story but not the focus of this book. I owe debts to many friends, colleagues, acquaintances, conference participants, and editors who have collectively and individually influenced my thinking and writing on agriculture. They have, whether they realize it or not, contributed to my work in numerous ways through their observations, criticism, and thoughtful remarks. I am especially grateful to William Lazonick, who coauthored Chapters  2 and 6. I  also thank the editors of Agricultural History, Business and Economic History and The Journal of the Historical Society for permission to reprint previously published work. Similarly, I thank Thomas Summerhill and James Scott, editors of Transatlantic Rebels: Agrarian Radicalism in Comparative Context. Matthew Lavallee and Jamie M. Grischkan helped me in many small and large ways—​I am very grateful for the research support and suggestions. The book is dedicated to William Lazonick and Jay Mandle, both of whom I have coauthored and collaborated with over the years. Through our conversations and collaborative work, Jay and Bill have inspired and pushed me in numerous ways, serving as models of intellectual rigor, vigor, and generosity. I owe each a special debt. Lastly, this book is also dedicated to those unacknowledged and critical public servants whose work on behalf of American agriculture in the USDA and other subsequent agencies made it possible by the early decades of the twentieth century for America to become the largest and most successful agricultural producer in the world. Remembering the contributions of their expertise is all the more important in an age when experts are disregarded and the noble ideal of public service itself is under sustained attack.

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INTRODUCTION The Anatomy of The Ultimate Investment  World history will record the twentieth century as the “American century.” For the period taken as a whole, the United States dominated the twentieth century economically as well as politically and culturally. What was the secret of American economic success? Abundant natural resources played a role. So too did individual creativity and entrepreneurship. But the United States’ emergence by the middle of the twentieth century as the world’s most successful economy relied primarily on one key ultimate investment—​the social commitment to build the productive capabilities that generated sustainable prosperity in American agriculture. The ultimate investment in agriculture enabled Americans over time to spend less of their disposable income on food and more on other goods and services. After the end of the Civil War the American government spent significant sums to turn the United States into the world’s greatest agricultural power. The investment in improving agricultural productivity was so successful that it was the ultimate investment of the American developmental state. As the following chapters reveal, this ultimate investment consisted of the creation of a nationwide network of agricultural experiment stations and land-​grant colleges. Much of it was directed by a new agency at the federal level:  the Department of Agriculture. Although founded in 1862, the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) development into a powerful organization coincided with the managerial revolution in industry. This is significant, because the USDA and land-​grant colleges developed organizational capabilities as sophisticated as those in the nation’s largest private enterprises. This fueled the transformation of American agriculture in ways that have not always been recognized and enabled Americans to enjoy higher standards of living. Such investments in productive and managerial capabilities paid off in higher quality goods and services at lower costs for consumers. They also raised the standards of living of the people who contributed their skills and effort to produce those products. This book tells that story.

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If an ultimate investment sounds too good to be true, all we need to look at is how, during the course of the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries the United States started to become the richest nation in the world and the largest and most successful producer of agricultural products. America’s ultimate investment in agriculture expanded the productive capabilities of the sector and generated an abundance of high-​quality food at lower costs that translated into lower food prices. And if, in the wake of challenges from new competitors abroad, the United States seems in danger of losing its dominant position, we should ask whether the causes can be found in America’s failure to increase its ultimate investment in American agriculture. Agriculture has been, and remains, very important to the American economy. Besides providing Americans with low-​cost sources of food and various types of materials for clothing, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals, the United States continues to export vast quantities of agricultural products to the rest of the world. The critical primary agricultural products exported include grain products, soya products, and cotton, making up, depending on the year, over half of the value of these exports. The ultimate investment that fueled the growth of American agriculture was built on a partnership between the state and private enterprise. To be sure, the hardworking farmer with his or her own internally generated funds contributed immensely to the nation’s superior agricultural record. Individual farmers, however, have had neither the financial means nor the scientific knowledge to develop new technologies that could dramatically improve productivity. Agricultural machinery and implements companies, such as International Harvester and John Deere, were successful in developing labor-​saving machines that increased the amount of land that could be tilled, planted, and harvested by farmers. These agricultural machinery and implements companies succeeded during the first half of the twentieth century because they made investments, not only in production and distribution facilities but also in formidable managerial organizations. American agriculture provides a concrete historical illustration of the fruits of ultimate investments. For the technological transformation of American agriculture, the building of organizational capabilities in the private sector was not enough. Public–​private partnerships yielded impressive results. The continued growth in agriculture, moreover, also required scientific advances that could be embodied in the land and the products of the land to increase crop production. To secure higher gains from machines and scientific advances, the government undertook the education of farmers in the use of these new technologies, set aside resources for land-​grant colleges, and supported the expansion and development of statewide and regional experiment stations.

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As a result, the expansion and development of organizational capabilities in American agriculture were important in opening up and expanding global markets for U.S. agricultural exports. Farmers, of course, had to have the financial resources to buy improved farm machinery, tools, seeds, and fertilizers. Yet, before the 1930s, volatile farm prices meant that farmers rarely could rely on their own financial resources to invest in new farm practices and equipment. Even when loans were available, many farmers were reluctant to borrow for fear of losing their land. Indeed, some farmers who did borrow to make significant capital investments ended up in bankruptcy and had their land foreclosed. Because of this confluence of factors, the development of new agricultural products, improved farm tools and equipment, and the provision of financial capital and monetary incentives that could enable and encourage farmers to invest in the higher yielding materials and machinery had to be undertaken by entities other than the farmers themselves. To some extent, private-​sector businesses carried out these roles, especially in the development and diffusion of farm implements and machinery. Starting in the late nineteenth century, however, it was the government sector, not the private sector, which has been overwhelmingly responsible for the development of science for agriculture and the transfer of the advances to millions of farmers. Simply put, federal, state, and local governments made ultimate investments to boost the agricultural sector. The key department for planning and coordinating the development and diffusion of these science-​ based technologies throughout the nation was the USDA, working with state experiment stations and publicly funded universities—​the famous network of “land-​grant colleges” that were endowed by the federal government through the Morrill Land Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890. Knowledge also flowed from the farmer to the government agencies. Improvements in seeds, fertilizers, disease control, as well as new product development required that the scientific community, largely based in the USDA, land-​grant colleges, and state experiment stations, receive information back from farmers concerning their experiences under widely varying climatic and geological conditions. Many Americans take it for granted that government has no business in the operation of the economy. Nowhere is such a notion so misinformed as in the case of the U.S.  agricultural sector. The fact is that in the economic development of U.S. agriculture, governments at the federal, state, and county levels became deeply involved in developing new products and materials for agriculture and ensuring their effective use. Over the long run, moreover, the activities of the private sector and the public sector became inextricably linked in the development of U.S. agriculture.

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The managerial revolution that took place in manufacturing also had a counterpart in agriculture. In manufacturing, the managerial revolution occurred primarily within private-​sector companies that came to dominate their industries. In agriculture, the managerial revolution occurred primarily within public-​sector organizations that defined the strategies and structures of American agriculture. From the U.S. secretary of agriculture down through the state experiment stations to the army of county agents who interacted directly with the farmers, an elaborate managerial organization evolved in the American agricultural sector between the late 1880s and the 1920s. Not by coincidence, it was during this very same period that the managerial revolution in manufacturing occurred. The potential for innovation and productivity growth through the application of science to industrial pursuits was as great in agriculture as in manufacturing. As in many manufacturing sectors, the managerial revolution that occurred in U.S. agriculture made America the most powerful and successful agricultural competitor in the world. An understanding of the roles of the government in the development of U.S. agriculture makes it difficult to argue that successful government organizational and financial support is foreign to the experience of the United States. For developing and using productive resources, moreover, the organizational principles of effective government support are analogous to the organizational principles of an effective business organization in the private sector. But the case of U.S.  agriculture has even more profound implications for understanding the sources of successful economic development. The contribution of federal, state, and local governments in the United States to agricultural productivity represents one of the most successful examples in modern economic history of the beneficial impact that the government can have on a single economic sector. In agriculture an infrastructure was put in place that created high-​quality products at low costs and the essays collected here illustrate the critical importance ultimate investments made to the American economy. In sum, ultimate investments enabled Americans to enjoy higher standards of living. Such investments in productive and managerial capabilities paid off in higher quality goods and services at lower costs for consumers. They also raised the standards of living of the people who contributed their skills and effort to produce those products.1 1 For a discussion of the impact the managerial revolution had on the American manufacturing sector, see William Lazonick, Business Organization and the Myth of Market Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); William Lazonick and Mary O’Sullivan, “Organization, Finance, and International Competition,” Industrial and Corporate Change 5, no. 1 (1996): 1–​49; William Lazonick and Mary O’Sullivan, “Finance and Industrial Development, Part I:  The United States and the United Kingdom,” Financial History

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Footnote 1  (Cont.) Review 4 (April 1997): 7–​29; William Lazonick, “Controlling the Market for Corporate Control: The Historical Significance of Managerial Capitalism,” Industrial and Corporate Change 1, no.  3 (1992):  445–​ 88; William Lazonick, “Organizational Capabilities in American Industry:  The Rise and Decline of Managerial Capitalism,” Business and Economic History, second series, 19 (1990):  35–​54; William Lazonick, “Financial Commitment and Economic Performance:  Ownership and Control in the American Industrial Corporation,” Business and Economic History, second series, 17 (1988): 115–​28; William Lazonick and Mary O’Sullivan, eds., Corporate Governance and Sustainable Prosperity (New  York:  Macmillan, 2002); Mary O’Sullivan, Contests for Corporate Control:  Corporate Governance and Economic Performance in the United States and Germany (New  York:  Oxford University Press, 2000). For an informative review and analysis of American agriculture with a different emphasis, see Alan L.  Olmstead and Paul W.  Rhode, Creating Abundance: Biological Innovation and American Agricultural Development (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008) and Alan L. Olmstead and Paul W. Rhode, Arresting Contagion: Science, Policy, and Conflicts over Animal Disease Control (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015). Finally, for an insightful analysis of the role public servants played across the U.S. government from the Civil War to the eve of the Great Depression, see Daniel Carpenter, The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy: Reputations, Networks, and Policy Innovation in Executive Agencies, 1862–​1928 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).

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Chapter 1 UPLIFTING AMERICAN AGRICULTURE: EXPERIMENT STATION SCIENTISTS AND THE OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS IN THE EARLY YEARS AFTER THE HATCH ACT 

Alfred C. True, Director of the Office of Experiment Stations (OES) in its formative years, once remarked that it was the intent of the OES to be supportive, sympathetic, and helpful in order to assist and bolster agricultural research at American experiment stations. Conflicts arose between the stations and the OES, of course, despite good intentions. These conflicts involved more than bureaucratic hassles or professional disagreements on the merits of specific lines of agricultural research. True’s vision of uplifting American agriculture centered on stimulating station scientists to pursue research investigations that were fundamentally abstract in character.1 He considered investigations that utilized scientific principles critical to achieving progress in agriculture, even if the investigations appeared superficially unrelated to the immediate needs of farmers. He believed that despite differential soil, climate, and crop mixes, experiment station scientists could organize their work in common areas 1 Alfred True, A History of Agricultural Experimentation and Research in the United States, 1607–​1925 (Washington, DC:  GPO, 1937), 133; Charles E.  Rosenberg, “The Adams Act:  Politics and the Cause of Scientific Research,” Agricultural History 38 (1964):  3–​ 21; Charles E.  Rosenberg, “Science, Technology and Economic Growth:  The Case of the Experiment Station Scientist, 1875–​1914,” Agricultural History 45 (1971):  1–​20; Norwood Allen Kerr, The Legacy:  A Centennial History of the State Agricultural Experiment Stations (Columbia: Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Missouri-​ Columbia, 1987), 23–​47.

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emphasizing original research. Throughout his brilliant and illustrious career he encouraged experiment stations to adopt his philosophy on advancing agriculture; that is, uplifting agriculture meant reorienting research work away from responding to local agriculture problems to focusing on improving the scientific foundations of agriculture. In other words, if American agriculture were to prosper, experiment stations needed to solve the mysteries abounding in agricultural science. To what extent was OES successful in influencing experiment station research? In order to answer this question I examine the pattern of agricultural research at the experiment stations from 1892 to 1909. The various ways the OES viewed the stations’ work is also examined by analyzing their public statements on the nature of the research being carried out. In the end, the OES was quite successful—​much more than realized—​in reorienting agricultural research at the experiment stations by 1910. While many valuable studies have emphasized the disputes, problems, and disagreements that marked the OES relationship with some experiment stations or the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), few have connected these issues with the change in the overall pattern of agricultural research at American experiment stations. Another issue examined is that notwithstanding the OES success at altering the nature of experiment station investigations, this did not necessarily mean that they were reaching more ordinary American farmers. Simply put, while the OES was successful at changing the attitudes of station scientists regarding the nature of agricultural research they should be carrying out, they did not fare as well with farmers. The Hatch Act of 1887 stated that agricultural experiment stations should “aid in acquiring and diffusing among the people of the United States useful and practical information […] under the direction of the college or colleges or agricultural department of colleges […] [and] That it shall be the object and duty of said experiment stations to conduct original researches or verify experiments.” The Act further authorized the Secretary of Agriculture “to secure, as far as practicable, uniformity of methods and results in the work of said stations […] [and] to indicate from time to time such lines of inquiry as to him shall seem most important […] to furnish such advice and assistance as will best promote the purpose of this act.” To oversee the provisions of this Act, which included giving each station $15,000 annually in addition to whatever additional funds were provided by the states or through fees, the USDA in 1888 established the OES. Six years later Congress passed legislation that allowed the USDA to determine if station expenditures were in accord with the provisions of the Hatch Act. The American Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment

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Stations (AAACES) passed a resolution supporting the USDA’s “measure of supervision” of their expenditures.2 The Hatch Act implied that experiment stations serve or be accountable to several constituencies, that is, farmers, land-​grant colleges, and the OES. The Act itself was somewhat confusing and subject to wide interpretation.3 The OES believed that the introductory clause of the Hatch Act had misled people. That is, the suggestion that the stations would “aid in acquiring and diffusing among the people of the United States useful and practical information.” In addition, because experiment stations were located in land-​grant colleges, the allocation of station resources was subject to oversight not only by the OES but also by college officials. Many of these agricultural colleges had their own troubles, some of which centered on insufficient state funding and farmer disillusionment with the colleges’ programs and policies. Thus, from the onset of the Hatch Act the stations were under intense pressures, and as these various pressures lessened or intensified, the character of their research changed. Individual histories of experiment stations reek with bureaucratic and political horror stories that contributed to inhibiting research agendas. Experiment station scientists relied on books and agricultural magazines for information on the advances in agricultural science. The most important publication they relied on was the Experiment Station Record (Record), the official publication of the OES that regularly printed abstracts of experiments or reports conducted worldwide, including the details of American and foreign station experiments. The Record provided two kinds of information for scientists. First, the content (albeit in an abbreviated form) and category of each bulletin was reported in the Record (sometimes the results of experiments were summarized in annual reports). These abstracts allowed American experiment station personnel to familiarize themselves with the specific details of completed experiments worldwide. Second, OES officials wrote editorials on the pattern of domestic and foreign agricultural research. In this regard the OES staff often solicited articles (or summarized major findings) from domestic and foreign investigations of particular interest to the OES. Usually these articles were accompanied by an editorial commenting on the significance of the results. These editorials 2 Wayne D.  Rasmussen, ed., Agriculture in the United States (New  York:  Random House, 1975), 1232–​33; True, History of Agricultural Experimentation, 130, 138; Experiment Station Record (ESR) 6 (1894–​95): 175–​77, 258–​59; Alan I. Marcus, Agricultural Science and the Quest for Legitimacy (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1985), 218; Vernon Carstensen, “The Genesis of an Agricultural Experiment Station,” Agricultural History 34 (1960): 19–​20. 3 True, History of Agricultural Experimentation, 132–​33.

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represented OES views—​positively and negatively—​on the trajectory of agricultural science carried out by American and foreign investigators.4 Completed experiments—​independent of the success or failure of the experiment—​were typically recorded in the Record as they were released for public dissemination. By volume four of the Record, the OES had categorized the experiments into various areas, with each section containing abstracts describing or highlighting details of the experiment. These published abstracts provided scientists with a snapshot of final results of agricultural inquiries and contributed to the professional standing of the investigator(s). These bulletins, then, provided a crude index for scientists of progress in experiments involving such areas as corn in Iowa, cotton in Georgia, dairy farming in New York, irrigation in Utah, allowing them to correlate their inquiries with others similarly engaged.5 The pattern of agricultural research carried out at the experiment stations is displayed in Table 1.1. This table describes the percent of experiments per category per region between 1892 and 1909. The numbers in Table 1.1 indicate the extent to which each region accounted for specific categories of agricultural research that were abstracted in the Record. The percent figure refers to the total number of abstracts cited per category per region in the Record

4 True assumed directorship of the OES after volume 4 of the Record. It was not possible to positively determine who wrote the editorials in the Record. However, it appears to have been True and occasionally E. W. Allen. Wayne Rasmussen agrees with my assessment that True probably wrote the editorials. See ESR 4(92) (1892):  1; Rasmussen, private correspondence. 5 David B. Danborn, “The Agricultural Experiment Station and Professionalism: Scientists Goals for Agriculture, 1887–​1910,” Agricultural History 60 (Spring 1986):  246–​55. The length of abstracts in the Record varied considerably. Some were short, others quite long. I could not determine the decision rule used to specify the length of an abstract. Since different OES personnel over the years were responsible for summarizing the research results, uniformity in the write-​ups of the research does not appear to have been a central concern. It was clear, however, that when an experiment or sets of experiments were completed that appealed to the field expert, the abstract was more detailed and comprehensive. The writers of abstracts and the managing of the Record also underwent several changes over the years. Starting with volume 6 the Record was organized by topics—​ abstracting station publications, Department of Agriculture and foreign investigations by category of experimental science to make it more readable and accessible to scientists. In volume 11 Dr. E. W. Allen assumed editorial management of the Record. The Record also stated in this volume that “the abstracts were in brevier [sic] type than was formerly the case […] and also to omit many of the details which were formerly included. This calls for closer discrimination on the part of the abstracters […] it will make it more strictly a record of progress in agriculture.” See ESR (1894–​95): 1; ESR 7 (1895–​96): 262; ESR 11 (1899–​1900): 2,  1101.

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Table 1.1  Distribution of U.S. experiment station experiments, by region, 1892–​1909 (percentage)

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13)

Articles classified

U.S.

North Midwest West

South

Chemistry Agricultural Botany Meteorology Soil and Fertilizers Field Crops Horticulture Forestry Diseases of Plants Entomology and Zoology Foods/​Animal Production Veterinary Science/​Med. Dairy Farming/​Techn. Agricultural/​Rural Engin.

100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0a 100.0 100.0 100.0

41.7 28.1 45.8 44.1 21.3 35.3 27.2 43.4 36.1 40.7 23.9 42.8 10.8

23.5 22.5 22.4 23.7 29.9 22.8 13.2 15.3 26.2 15.0 37.3 12.9 12.9

23.5 28.8 18.0 18.5 30.7 23.0 28.9 26.5 21.0 29.4 26.5 36.5 29.4

11.3 20.6 13.8 13.7 18.2 18.9 30.7 14.8 16.7 14.8 12.3 7.8 46.9

  Does not equal 100 percent because of rounding off. Notes: The articles classified refer to abstracts of experiment station bulletins and annual reports cited in the Experiment Station Record, excluding those from Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Some of the bulletins covered experiments in more than one category. For example, bulletin 77 of the South Dakota Experiment Station reported on experiments in “Macaroni Wheat in South Dakota.” These experiments were reported in volume 16 of the Record in two categories: Field Crops (5) and Foods/​Animal Production (10). Table 1.1 reflects citations of bulletins including those experiments that were reported in multiple categories. If the experiment station carried out different kinds of experiments and they were listed separately, they are recorded above individually. Some stations reported their experiments when they published their annual reports. For example, the 1907 Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Experiment Station cited in the Record listed station experiments or tests in categories 3, 6, and 12. The breakdown above records abstracts not by the number of bulletins or reports issued per station but by the number of times an abstract referring to the bulletin or report is cited in the Record. To list and count only bulletins and reports would seriously understate the range of experiments carried out in several areas and summarized in one bulletin or report. See True, A History of Agricultural Experimentation and Research in the United States, 163–​64. a

Source: Experiment Station Record, Vols. 4–​21 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1892–​1909).

divided by the total number of abstracts cited per category in the United States. For example, the North conducted 569 experiments out of 1,289 nationwide or 44.1 percent of the Soil and Fertilizers (category 4) experiments carried out over the years. In terms of the absolute number of experiments carried out, the northern stations dominated the nation. This region accounted for 35 percent or more of all experiments in eight categories. More importantly, northern stations totaled over 40 percent in six categories. In only four categories did they fail to be ranked 1st or 2nd. The Midwest and West led in research work in two categories (the former in field crops and botany, the higher ranking

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Table  1.2  Distribution of experiment stations with regions and the United States, 1892–​1909 (percentage)

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13)

Articles classified

U.S.

North

Midwest

West

South

Chemistry Agricultural Botany Meteorology Soil and Fertilizers Field Crops Horticulture Forestry Diseases of Plants Entomology and Zoology Foods/​Animal Production Veterinary Science/​Med. Dairy Farming/​Techn. Agricultural/​Rural Engin.

2.3 1.5 4.2 11.9 17.4 13.1 1.1 8.6 10.9 14.7 4.4 8.3 1.8

2.7 1.2 5.4 14.8 10.4 13.0 0.8 10.4 11.0 16.8 2.9 10.0 0.6

2.1 1.6 2.9 8.4 20.4 11.5 1.2 8.7 8.7 16.5 4.4 11.6 2.0

1.6 1.9 3.6 10.2 19.7 15.5 2.0 7.9 11.3 13.5 3.4 4.1 5.3

2.4 1.5 4.2 12.7 23.3 13.5 0.6 5.9 12.8 9.9 7.3 4.8 4.0

Totala

100a

100

100

100

100a

  Does not equal 100 percent because of rounding off.

a

Source: See Table 1.1.

in category 2 because the Midwest completed one more experiment than the North; the latter in forestry in irrigation), and the South ranked first only in veterinary science.6 The data reinforces a well-​known fact—​that northern stations led the nation in experimental agricultural science. A somewhat different picture emerges by examining the distribution of experiment within regions. The percent figure (Table 1.2) refers to the total number of abstracts cited per category in the Record divided by the total abstracts cited irrespective of category per region over the years. For example, 6 Between 1892 and 1909 spanning volumes 4–​21, northern stations led the nation in the total number of abstracts cited, with the Midwest ranking second, the South third, and the newer states of the West trailing in citations. More precisely, the North had almost double the number of abstracts than the West and one thousand or more abstracts than either the Midwest or South. Over the years some categories were combined. For example, Category 5 was two separate categories until volume 17 of the Record. Separate reports listed fertilizer experiments and air, water, and soil experiments. After volume 17 water experiments were included under Meteorology. Soil experiments were no longer listed but, as stated above, included with fertilizers. Some aspects of previous categories disappeared or were no longer listed separately. This appears to be what happened to air studies. For a full listing of previous and changed categories see volumes 16 and 17 of the Experiment Station Record. The list of abstracts of experiments in Table 1.1 reflects the combined categories recorded after volume 17.

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the North had 103 abstracts listed under Chemistry (2)  out of a total of 3,840 thousand experiments noted in the Record that originated in Northern stations. The data in Table 1.2 suggests that there were differences regionally in the kinds of experiments stations carried out. Every region had at least one or two categories that stood out—​implying that scientists within these regions devoted more attention to these areas than others. This was even the case when the number of experiments cited is small. Not all of these differences within regions, however, were statistically significant. Nor does the data indicate whether or not there were sharp quality differences in the nature of the experiments carried out regionally or nationally. For example, several states within these regions produced fewer and more insightful bulletins on the merits of soil and fertilizer tests than other stations. Other states carried out twice or three times as many experiments but with inconsistent and inconclusive results. It was not possible to determine an appropriate decision rule to rank the bulletins in terms of the quality of the investigation. In sum, Table 1.2 describes the regional pattern of experiment station research that the OES was editorially commenting on in its attempts to influence the pattern of agricultural research. Some of the results displayed in Table 1.2 are not surprising. For example, in three of the four regions field crop experiments dominate all other types of experiments (only in the North was this not the case). In the West and South the two top research areas were field crops and horticulture, in the Midwest field crops and foods and animal production, while the North tended to concentrate on soil and fertilizer tests as well as foods and animal production. Seven categories account for between 82.2 and 86.4 percent of all experiments across all regions. These were soil and fertilizer, field crops, horticulture, diseases of plants, entomology (zoology accounted for an insignificant proportion of experiments), foods and animal production, and dairy farming (few experiments focused on technology). Since stations had differential sources of funds at their disposal, it is noteworthy that regions concentrated their major research efforts on a similar set of investigations.7

7 It is possible to regroup the data in several other ways. One way is to examine the number of categories in which a region is dominant. This ranking does not imply that if a region has 0.2  percent higher citations that this is a statistically significant difference or that higher ranking means more citations per category nationwide. The rankings do reflect, however, crudely, the relative importance of particular areas of research over others. If we combine the number of times a region is ranked either first or second, the North, South, and Midwest had rankings of 1st or 2nd seven or eight times, while the West only had similar rankings five times. This reinforces the previous finding that the regions had multiple areas of research and were not narrowly confined in their experiments.

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OES staff were critical of many aspects of experiment station work, including inquiries in these seven categories. Under the Hatch Act, the OES was to evaluate station work regularly in order to judge whether or not stations met standards for experiment work. These standards are not easily discernable since the OES did not spell them out in an editorial, but it appears that the OES had its own definition of a “model” station. Several characteristics of this model seem evident. First, a model station would make a clear distinction between research and instructional work. Second, the character of research investigations would utilize verifiable scientific principles. Third, the stations would not be purveyors of general information on agriculture—​instead they would be autonomous, science-​ serving institutions, emphasizing, for example, why diversified crop mixes were preferable to having farmers only rely upon one or two crops.8 Finally, since the stations were located in land-​grant colleges, the station directors would attempt to discourage administrators from disrupting research work because of either bureaucratic difficulties or inappropriate political interference. The European stations, known for their high-​quality investigations and educational programs, were the most concrete example of what the OES may have desired in its “model” station, particularly the German stations. The character and quality of investigations abroad were so frequently invoked as counterexamples to American stations that one could imagine the OES requesting a transplant or a clone from a European station to an American station. Europeans had done important studies in, among many areas, analyzing feed stuffs, dairying, seed investigation and control, systematic variety tests, as well as long-​term detailed field studies in a few lines of inquiry that emphasized cooperative work in the field and laboratory.9 Of all the issues raised by the OES, two stand out. First, that station scientists were not carrying out enough original research in agriculture. The OES argued that station research should be original in that it pushes the boundaries of agricultural science. Second, that the stations could not satisfy all farmer demands. They criticized state bulletins that were for universal consumption if all they did was present well-​known farm practices for popular audiences. In this connection the OES lamented that many station scientists had a heavy workload of instructional duties at the land-​grant colleges. This work might serve the college well but not agricultural science. 8 ESR 9 (1897–​98):  311–​12. See also True’s comments at AAACES meetings, ESR 6 (1894–​95): 258; ESR 7 (1895–​96): 167, 174; ESR 11 (1899–​1900): 401–​3. 9 ESR 4 (1892–​93): 525, 702, 792; ESR 5 (1893–​94): 359, 547–​49; ESR 6 (1894–​95): 177, 349–​52, 945–​46; ESR 7 (1895–​96): 1, 343–​46, 903; ESR 8 (1896–​97): 355–​57, 446, 543, 739–​40, 939; 08, 812, 1012–​13; ESR 14 (1902–​3): 101–​4; ESR 15 (1903–​4): 110, 211, 741; ESR 16 (1904–​5): 7, 837–​38; ESR 18 (1906–​7): 1104; ESR 20 (1908–​9): 101–​5,  201–​4.

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In the 1890s the OES urged stations to “make a wise selection of the few [questions] which ought to engage the serious attention of any one station. There is a danger that in yielding to a local demand for the testing of new crops or the improvement of old ones the real interests of even that locality may be sacrificed.” One apparent consequence was that “field experiments seem [to be] so barren of useful results.” This happened, argued the OES, because these experiments were not done jointly with other scientific studies, such as vegetable physiology. The best results in the field would include some joining of chemical and physical inquiries—​what the OES called the “union of scientific work.” The stations could accomplish this by specializing in one line of work around which all other activities within the station could be grouped. Then, “Concentration and combination of efforts will give vigor and effectiveness to these institutions for the uplifting of agriculture.”10 The problem, however, was that stations were not heeding OES advice as they expanded the scope of their work in the 1890s.11 The OES was particularly dismayed by the character of station variety investigations of wheat and corn. Tests that only covered a few years on limited plats were criticized because these tests were not sufficiently long enough to determine if the variety could 10 ESR 4 (1892–​93):  55–​57; 271, 396, 402, 527; ESR 5 (1893–​94):  275, ESR 7 (1895–​ 96): 633; ESR 9 (1897–​98): 501–​3. 11 It is against this background that E. W. Allen, the assistant director of the OES, wrote a paper in the 1890s on dairy work at the experiment stations that he intended to present at the eight annual meeting of the AAACES. A crowded agenda at the conference prohibited him from presenting it there. Instead, the paper appeared in the eighth volume of the Record with a footnote noting “Inasmuch as it contains reasonable criticisms of the work of our stations in dairying, together with pertinent suggestions regarding the further development of investigations in this line, its publication by the Department is deemed advisable.” In his article Allen analyzes those stations that have recently taken up dairying work, in particular he mentions southern experiment stations. While commending some, he was quite critical of those whose “chief object is to illustrate the ordinary operations of dairy and creamery management, and to develop the industry in State.” On the one hand, promoting dairy work could lead to commercial success for farmers by upgrading their products for the market. On the other hand, if the stations persisted in this line of work in dairying, these “conditions are opposed to experimental work, and often render such work well-​nigh impracticable.” Simply put, if any experimental inquiries in dairying were to occur, it would be incidental, with little, if any far-​reaching conclusions. Allen’s article raised these issues diplomatically. Nonetheless, he was concerned that without original research in dairying (similar to the European studies he cited) that involved other branches of experiment work, scientists would not be utilizing their resources efficiently. Acknowledging that stations were pursuing various kinds of dairy work, he cautioned them “to remember that the operations of experimenting, even along the most practical lines, are essentially different in details from those followed by the farmer, and require close supervision and attention to minor details.” See ESR 8 (1896–​97): 359–​67, my emphasis.

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adapt to local conditions. Unlike most American tests, they argued, German experiment station variety tests lasted five consecutive years on a large number of farms. Attempting to influence variety research, they cited with considerable praise a bulletin from the Illinois Station that had recently completed variety tests of corn over eight years on many plats similar to the German testing methods. An editorial commended those who understood the need to conduct experimental inquiries in a “strictly scientific manner.” By the turn of the century the OES editorials identified those stations that extended the time span of their variety tests: Minnesota’s wheat tests, West Virginia’s timothy, Louisiana’s sugarcane, Delaware’s sorghum, and upland and sea-​island cotton throughout the South. These stations received praise for their emphasis on selection and improved breeding in agricultural plants over an extended time horizon.12 Popular bulletins came under harsh criticism in the 1890s. For example, veterinary studies were criticized because “a considerable proportion of these are largely popular bulletins representing little if any investigation.” The OES acknowledged that some of the subjects covered warranted dissemination by experiment stations, but after these experiments had been completed and demonstrated the stations should leave the preparation and distribution of various antitoxins and serums to private enterprise. If state funds were given to stations to prepare these materials or pamphlets, the station should hire assistants to do this work, not station scientists. Instead researchers should examine problems in the common contagious diseases of stock, disinfection, or conduct experiments with certain substances used as fodder. A later commentary commended the joint work of the Missouri, Texas, and some 12 ESR 7 (1895–​96):  174, 903–​5; ESR 11 (1899–​1900):  202–​3. Irrigation studies in the West and nationwide were criticized in the 1890s and 1900s for concentrating only some of their efforts on these problems. An editorial on the West in the 1890s argued that the region needed to spend more energy and funds expeditiously, and along the lines of work espoused by the OES. These comments in the 1890s spurred new experiments carried out by Western states in the 1900s. Support for these experiments was accompanied by complaints that these stations should no longer focus on the kinds of crops that can be grown using irrigated techniques—​these should be left to farmers—​but instead focus on “the most difficult problems which require the aid of science for solution.” Lastly, the OES in the 1890s urged stations to carry out more complex, intricate soil investigations. They hoped more stations would connect soil investigations with field crop tests. They also encouraged American stations to follow the lead of Europeans and establish seed control stations to assist farmers in purchasing higher quality seeds. They praised early work in this area by the Connecticut Station and the North Carolina Station while noting that several stations can now test sample seeds. See ESR 6 (1894–​95): 760, 945–​46; ESR 7 (1895–​96): 167–​68, 261, 634; ESR 10 (1898–​99): 201–​2, 901–​2; ESR 16 (1904–​5): 632–​37.

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southern stations in combating Texas fever. The OES considered this kind of veterinarian research to be of the highest order. To them, it illustrated the critical importance of expending energy and resources on original research.13 According to the OES, the lack of focus in station work continued to negatively influence station work in the late 1890s. An OES review of the work done at the experiment stations in 1897 stressed, “that only about one-​half of our station publications contain accounts of investigations regularly conducted by the stations with a view to extending the boundaries of our knowledge regarding the science and practice of agriculture.” The OES regarded these numbers as troubling. They requested that all station personnel carefully monitor their operations to reverse this trend of devoting resources to work of comparatively little value. They blamed these problems on too many stations engaging in superficial experiments generated by demands from farmers for advice to solve immediate problems (or in the case of some stations, too much time spent on “demonstration” work). They ended their review with a harsh assessment of field and fertilizer experiments:  “Certainly the comparatively meager results which have come from a vast number of field experiments of certain classes with crops and fertilizers should lead to the most careful consideration of the methods of such work. The continued large use of funds in this direction can hardly be justified unless it is possible to improve the methods of our investigations so as to give us greater confidence in the results.” Their concerns were supported by a leading experiment station scientist’s analysis of all bulletins published in 1898 and 1899. Dr.  W.  H. Jordan, of the New  York State Station, presented a paper at the 14th annual meeting of the AAACES that indicated “that 41 percent of the pages […] ‘had no other purpose than the diffusion of existing knowledge,’ and that the preparation of this class of bulletins ‘appears to be materially increasing, when it ought to be decreasing.’ ”14 13 ESR 11 (1899–​1900): 301–​3, 901. 14 ESR 6 (1894–​95):  760; ESR 7 (1895–​96):  261; ESR 9 (1897–​98):  601–​4; ESR 12 (1900–​1901): 409–​10. OES officials were very troubled by the vast amount of station time allocated to analyzing fertilizers, work the OES felt did not lead to scientific breakthroughs. Editorials in the Record railed against the incompleteness and shoddiness of fertilizer experiments, though occasionally one station (usually unnamed) would be commended for its brilliant work in all phases of fertilizer studies. One editorial said, “The results of field experiments with fertilizers are so liable to misinterpretation that the necessity for the careful statement and explanation of such experiments is increasingly evident.” Most objectionable was the fact that “unscrupulous manufacturers of fertilizers seize upon unguarded or incidental statements in stations publications and use them for advertising purposes to the injury of the general public and to the disadvantage of the stations.” They cautioned stations not to publish “any information

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The OES objected to station scientists spending too much time either in responding to farmers’ requests or assuming too many duties at land-​grant colleges. The OES, when discussing farmers, stated that they thought “intelligent farmers” would be familiar with experiment station work. It is evident in their editorials over the years that they assumed that this class of farmers would avail themselves of the latest research from the world of agricultural science. Thus it is not surprising that they were criticizing farmers in the mid-​ 1890s for relying too heavily on station scientists for general information. While this may have been expected in the past, argued the OES, if a farmer presently “neglects to consider the important facts and principles set forth in the publications of this Department and of the experiment stations, he ought to blame nobody but himself when his more progressive neighbor outstrips him in the struggle for progress.” The OES did not deny the importance of educational work that station scientists participated in; they did, however, consider the time expended disproportionate given their expectation that scientists should be pursuing original research. Furthermore, the continual emphasis on educational work depleted a station’s resources, reoriented the station’s work in areas not originally contemplated by the Hatch Act, while making the station merely a “bureau of information or education.” While the goal of experiment stations remained to disseminate “practical” information, “this information is to be obtained by conducting original researches and verifying experiments.”15 which, though it may be of temporary advantage to farmers, can be construed as an advertisement of private interests.” Some experiment station scientists viewed matters differently. At the 12th annual AAACES meeting one investigator argued that “in those States where the purchase of fertilizers is an important factor in farm expenditures the stations should aid the farmer in the intelligent purchase and application of fertilizers […] this [was] the attitude assumed by most of the experiment stations, and that the position needed no defense.” See ESR 4 (1892–​93): 625; ESR 6 (1894–​95): 256; ESR 7 (1895–​96): 633–​34; ESR 10 (1898–​99): 710; ESR 11 (1899–​1900): 804. 15 ESR 7 (1895–​96):  435–​37; ESR 9 (1897–​98):  301–​2. The OES repeatedly criticized stations for allowing their scientists to be burdened with heavy commitments to farmer institutes and instructional duties in classroom courses where the complexities of agriculture were not fully explored, because these activities detracted from their scientific inquiries. Some leading figures in the experiment station movement disagreed with the OES on these issues. For example, at the seventh AAACES meeting, W. A. Henry, the director of the Wisconsin Experiment Station, remarked in his presidential address that “I believe that our station workers have in many cases accomplished more good for the cause of advanced agriculture through their efforts at instruction than through all they may have discovered.” At a later AAACES meeting a paper was presented suggesting that when both instructional and investigatory activities were combined the latter suffered. In the ensuing discussion scientists from New York, Ohio, Georgia, Florida, and Colorado disagreed with various aspects of the report. In defense of combining education and investigation, I.  P. Roberts of New  York said, “My experience leads

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Responding to many personal queries from farmers may also have contributed to the dissemination of poorly prepared bulletins. Some stations, the OES argued, were publishing bulletins that were confusing, misleading, that used technical terms unnecessarily, that did not provide a key for abbreviations, that presented tables and text inconsistently, and that reeked of careless proof-​reading. They again reminded scientists of problems at the end of the nineteenth century by quoting a scientist of “long standing” as supporting the publication of popular bulletins who hoped farmers would “ ‘write to the station on every problem that they meet,’ these letters to be answered ‘promptly and as fully as possible,’ and where feasible published in weekly press bulletins.” The OES seriously questioned whether such activities were within the purview of the station. They answered their own question by affirming that a small number of hours per week appeared reasonable; any more, dubious.16 The thrust of the criticisms by the OES concerning station experiments in the 1890s centered on soil, fertilizer, and field crop investigations. Other areas were mentioned, but the above ones received considerable comment during the decade. In order to determine the extent to which the pattern of agricultural science at the stations changed, Table 1.3 breaks down the experiments in Table  1.2 into two periods. The total number of abstracts grew by over 10 percent from the 1890s (Period A) to the 1900s (Period B). Every region me to the conclusion that the principal object of the experiment station is to diffuse knowledge of improved methods, and secondarily to carry on the work of investigation simultaneously.” Such views, of course, were precisely what prompted the OES to write editorials condemning these practices. See ESR 5 (1893–​94): 275; ESR 8 (1896–​ 97): 445; ESR 9 (1897–​98): 301–​2, 303–​4; ESR 11 (1899–​1900): 402–​3, 803. 16 ESR 8 (1896–​97): 177–​78; ESR 9 (1897–​98): 301–​2; ESR 11 (1899–​1900): 401–​3. At the AAACES conventions in the 1890s and 1900s there were long discussions on improving the uniformity of station nomenclature. One suggestion was to present one bulletin in simple, nontechnical language, listing facts and recommendations in accessible terms to farmers. Then another bulletin could be prepared especially for scientists that could delineate the scientific processes utilized underpinning the results. At the sixth AAACES convention in Nebraska scientist C. L. Ingersoll stated that “Bulletins should be so simple that the most ignorant farmer can get some good from them. Graphic illustrations should be used […] results of experiments should be briefly summarized. Full data should not be given in bulletins intended for the farmer.” It is noteworthy that the OES did not want the station bulletins to include advertisements for products. True stated that “The real objection […] to advertisements in station publications lies against the recommending of miscellaneous manufactured articles used by farmers which have not been the subject of experimental or investigation by stations in any true sense.” See ESR 4 (1892–​93): 401; ESR 6 (1894–​95): 261; ESR 7 (1985–​96): 173; ESR 9 (1897–​ 98): 307–​8, 311–​12; ESR 16 (1904–​5): 529–​30, 841–​42; ESR 17 (1905–​6): 212–​13; ESR 19 (1907–​8): 805–​7.

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except one increased the number of abstracts cited by the Record over the two periods. In the North, where the number declined, the drop is small, only 3.6 percent. Table 1.3 suggests that some regions changed their research priorities over these periods. For the total United States, regions cut back on experiments in field crops, horticulture, soil and fertilizers, and diseases of plants. Declines in the first two categories were greater than the slight drop in the last two. Entomology, foods and animal production, and dairy farming grew over the years. Different regions accounted for the changing pattern of research. Field crops and soil and fertilizer experiments declined in the North, the West, and the South. Horticulture tests in all regions dropped, though considerably less so in the South. In the above three categories only the Midwest did not deemphasize these areas in lieu of others. In diseases of plants, every region carried out fewer experiments except the South, where such experiments increased. Entomology experiments expanded in the North, West, and South; foods and animal production grew nationwide, as did dairy research (except in the North). In both the West and South the experiment stations reoriented their research work: the South expanded experiments in diseases of plants, entomology, foods and animal production, and dairying, while the West widened its experiments in veterinary science and botany as well as entomology, foods and animal production, and dairy farming. More importantly, it is apparent from Table  1.3 that the OES’s specific criticism of soil, fertilizer, and field crop experiments influenced station work in the 1900s.17 In the West and South, experiments in these categories in the 1890s declined from 35.5 and 39.8 percent to 26.8 and 32.4 percent, respectively, in the 1900s. OES officials appear to recognize that their exhortations of experiment stations in the West and South in the 1890s had worked when they emphatically state in 1900 that “The wisdom of Congress in making the Hatch fund a research fund is every year becoming more apparent. This Department is therefore disposed to more strongly insist on a strict interpretation of this act in this direction […] to devote the Hatch fund to investigations in agriculture.”18 Throughout the 1900s the OES continued to be vigilant on the use of Hatch funds for investigatory station work. Though less strident than in the 1890s, they still lamented that some station personnel were taking on too many noninvestigatory duties, particularly inspection work, routine analyses, and 17 By 1900 approximately 90 percent of the stations employed entomologists. This, no doubt, contributed to the increase in experiments in this category. See ESR 12 (1900–​ 1901): 406; ESR 13 (1901–​2): 102; True, History of Agricultural Experimentation, 137. 18 ESR 10 (1898–​99): 1103; ESR 11 (1899–​1900): 803.

Chem. Botany Met. Fert. Crops Hort. For. Dis. Ent. Foods Vet. Dairy Engin.

100a

2.3 1.6 4.6 12.5 19.0 14.3 0.8 9.1 9.7 13.1 4.0 7.3 1.8

U.S. (a)

100

2.3 1.4 3.8 11.4 15.9 12.1 1.3 8.1 11.9 16.1 4.7 9.2 1.8

U.S. (b)

100

2.5 1.4 5.0 15.3 11.1 14.0 0.3 11.7 9.2 15.6 3.2 10.1 0.6

North (a)

100

2.9 1.0 5.8 14.3 9.7 12.0 1.4 9.2 12.9 18.0 2.7 9.9 0.5

North (b)

100a

1.9 2.2 3.6 8.4 21.1 12.8 1.5 9.3 9.0 15.0 4.1 9.1 2.1

Midwest (a)

100a

2.6 1.7 2.8 8.3 21.0 10.2 1.1 8.1 7.6 18.0 4.8 11.6 2.1

Midwest (b)

100

1.4 1.2 3.6 10.8 24.7 18.0 2.2 8.5 9.6 10.3 1.5 2.6 5.6

West (a)

100

1.8 2.4 3.6 9.7 16.1 13.7 1.9 7.5 12.6 15.9 4.7 5.1 5.0

West (b)

100

2.8 1.8 5.7 13.7 26.1 13.7 0.2 4.8 11.1 8.7 6.9 3.2 1.3

South (a)

100a

2.1 1.2 2.7 11.8 20.6 13.2 1.0 6.9 14.4 11.1 7.7 6.5 0.7

South (b)

Source: See Table 1.1. Volumes 4–​11 are designated by a, and 12–​21 by b.

Notes: Within regions, several states dominate the number of experiments in periods a and b. For example, in the South, North Carolina accounted for 48.5 percent of the abstracts cited in Meteorology (category 3) in volumes 4–​11. In the North, Massachusetts accounted for 44.4 percent of Agricultural Botany abstracts in volumes 12–​21 and 52.6  percent of Meteorology in period a and 45  percent in period b.  Delaware accounted for 41.3  percent of Veterinary Science/​Medicine in volumes 4–​11 in the North. In the Midwest, Wisconsin accounted for 43.9 percent of Agricultural/​Rural Engineering in period a. Finally, California accounted for 49.4 percent of Soil and Fertilizers, 56.4 percent of Horticulture, and 43.8 percent of Forestry abstracts in period a. a   Does not equal 100 percent because of rounding off.

Totala

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13)

Articles classified

Table 1.3  Distribution of experiment station experiments within regions and the United States, by periods (percentage)

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instructional activities. The tone of the complaints, however, focused more on the individual attributes of the scientists. In their words, “Many men attribute their failure to achieve success as investigators to their environment, when the trouble is really in themselves. Complaints about lack of time and funds and opportunities count for very little when they come from men who are evidently spreading the scope of their operations beyond a reasonable limit, or who cannot produce well-​conceived and carefully thought out plans of research.” OES officials recognized that there were situations where circumstances inhibited station work. Yet they wanted station scientists to make every effort to minimize any potential obstacle to fundamental research investigations. In this regard they applauded the work of the Wisconsin station, encouraging stations to emulate their high-​quality investigations.19 Criticism of research work continued throughout the 1900s. But it was neither as severe nor as common as it had been in the 1890s. Station veterinarians were criticized for spending too much time on nonresearch tasks, animal production investigators were taken to task for too few and narrowly defined feeding experiments with horses, and station bulletins were criticized for merely reporting data without systematically analyzing it, including publishing the results of inadequate experiments (by which the OES meant not original investigations) in fertilizers and soils, diseases of plants, and feeding work.20 Other aspects of station work also received comment. As in the 1890s, the OES believed that stations were not operating at peak efficiency in their investigations in the 1900s because of poor management of station resources and personnel. They wanted stations to (1) reduce the triple-​duty of station scientists who had to serve land-​grant colleges instructionally, provide general agricultural information to farmers, plus carry on original investigations; (2) improve farmer education—​for example, college and extension work, but especially farmers’ institutes, which the OES thought “should be made the

19 ESR 14 (1902–​3):  413–​15; ESR 15 (1903–​4):  3–​5, 210–​11; ESR 16 (1904–​5):  3–​5, 315–​18, 838–​40; ESR 17 (1905–​6): 209–​13; ESR 19 (1907–​8): 107–​8; ESR 20 (1908–​ 9): 305–​6. In the 1900s the OES increasingly blamed station personnel for the station’s difficulties in promoting original investigations. For example, the OES commented on a recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that focused on the key attributes of research. They noted “one point quite prominently emphasized by nearly all was the prime importance of the man. This single factor overshadows all others in research—​the theme, the equipment, the surroundings, and other material resources […] Men with well-​developed investigating instincts are the great prerequisite […] The position of the man of science who devotes himself to research is not assured as it is in Europe.” See ESR 14 (1902–​3): 517–​18. 20 ESR 12 (1900–​1901): 601–​3; ESR 13 (1901–​2): 1009; ESR 14 (1902–​3): 829; ESR 17 (1905–​6): 212, 931; ESR 18 (1906–​7): 104–​6; ESR 19 (1907–​8): 1001.

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means to uplifting the people morally and socially”; (3) increase cooperative experiments between the USDA, OES, and stations; and (4) raise nonfederal government funding of station equipment and buildings.21 When the Congress passed the Adams Act in 1906 the OES immediately reminded the stations that the act “differs from the Hatch Act in the more restricted application of the funds. It provides specially for the fundamental investigations of original character which the work of the past few years has brought out such a glaring need of.” The OES cautioned stations that Adams funds called for judicious selection of research areas and investigators. While some stations might interpret the Hatch Act as allowing the allocation of funds for some noninvestigatory work, the use of Adams funds required consultation with OES and thus they could assure that the projects focused on fundamental research.22 The problem of retaining and hiring station scientists accelerated with the passage of the Adams Act. In the early 1900s the OES became acutely aware that the stations were having problems securing qualified personnel for station work. They suggested that “Agricultural research calls for very special qualifications in the way of native ability and scientific acumen.” Their view in 1906, after the passage of the Adams Act, was that station personnel were of three classes:  (1) disseminators of general information to farmers; (2)  experimenters who conduct elementary trials and experiments, where the collection of scientific data is incidental to the experiment; and (3)  “A third group of men always have in mind, even in what are apparently simple experiments, a recognition of the principles which are operative and which serve to explain results.” Of all the classes, the OES noted that the last group remained small. Why? The OES believed “This scarcity is to a large degree the result of the ideals and tendencies which have dominated station work in the past. The practical phase—​ the immediately practical phase—​ has been constantly in the foreground.” Thus some station workers had been ill prepared for original research. Inadequate advanced training and low salaries contributed to this tendency.23 21 ESR 12 (1900–​1901): 401–​3, 409–​10; ESR 13 (1901–​2): 501, 811, 908; ESR 14 (1902–​ 3): 1–​4; ESR 15 (1903–​4): 1–​5, 210–​11, 318, 327–​28, 739–​40, 841–​42; ESR 16 (1904–​ 5):  313–​15; ESR 18 (1906–​7):  401–​3; ESR 19 (1907–​8):  3–​4, 201–​6, 301–​5; ESR 20 (1908–​9): 402, 415–​16; ESR 21 (1909): 501–​5. 22 ESR 17 (1905–​6):  728–​30, 929–​33; True, History of Agricultural Experimentation, 207; Rosenberg, “The Adams Act”; Kerr, The Legacy, 48–​52. Research funded under the Adams Act also received some sharp commentaries, particularly in plant breeding, the fastest growing category of experiments. See ESR 18 (1906–​7): 602–​4, 801–​7; ESR 20 (1908–​9): 1001–​5; ESR 21 (1909): 403–​8. 23 ESR 18 (1906–​7): 1–​6, 301–​6, 1001–​6; ESR 19 (1907–​8): 101–​3; ESR 20 (1908–​9): 1–​7.

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By 1907, turnover at the stations grew dramatically. The OES noted that in this year every station but three lost from one to eight scientists over the year, while in 1908 many more also left. Although those departing were typically assistant grade personnel, the OES noted that in 1907/​8 at least one-​third were heads of departments or responsible for specific categories of experiments. Most did not leave station work, instead they moved to new stations. Some stations managed to hire high-​quality replacements, yet these changes still caused disruption in existing lines of research that detracted from a station’s ability to sustain research projects. The OES believed the prime motivation for such high turnover rates was “[t]‌he inequality of conditions at different institutions.” They regretted these conditions and urged states to improve conditions for investigators.24 By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, agricultural scientists at American experiment stations had carried out thousands of field and laboratory experiments examining almost every aspect of agriculture.25 Many of these scientists had successfully integrated their research agendas with scientists nationwide under the tutelage of the OES. Station personnel still had to respond to requests from farmers and land-​grant colleges to assist them in their endeavors. Yet the quality of the bulletins and reports with regard to emphasizing original investigations is far greater in the 1900s compared to the 1890s.26 The OES had successfully influenced stations across all the regions to improve their research procedures and the selection of research projects. As a result, while regions maintained identifiable areas of inquiry over the whole period, substantial change did occur regionally. On the question of reaching farmers with the results of these investigations, the OES did not achieve the same notable success. In their defense they 24 ESR 19 (1907–​8):  601–​7; ESR 21 (1909):  601–​6. Turnover was also mentioned as a minor problem in the 1890s. See ESR 5 (1893–​94): 275; ESR 8 (1896–​97): 539–​40. 25 True’s assessment of the experiment station investigations over the years is in History of Agricultural Experimentation, 142–​63. See also Alfred C.  True and V.  A. Clark, The Agricultural Experiment Stations in the United States (Washington, DC: GPO, 1900); Alfred C. True, A History of Agricultural Education in the United States, 1785–​1925 (New York: Arno Press, 1969). 26 This observation is based on my reading of the bulletins and reports between the two periods. The key characteristic that distinguishes most of the bulletins and reports between the two is that 1990s bulletins appear to be written strictly for specialists, that is, other station scientists engaged in similar work and not for farmers. See also Earle D. Ross, Democracy’s College: The Land Grant Movement in the Formative Stage (Ames: Iowa State College Press, 1942), 141–​42; Kerr, The Legacy, 42–​44. Some states recognized this and issued another series of bulletins under the heading “popular bulletins.” See, for example, any of the popular editions of bulletins issued by the New  York State Experiment Station.

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thought that the best way to improve farm practices was to increase the stock of knowledge in agriculture. They presumed that “intelligent” farmers would avail themselves of their work. They appealed to this class of farmers, the rural elite, who would, if properly motivated, modernize farm practices. Yet as the OES accomplished its goal of increasing the output of high-​quality research investigations at the experiment stations, the overwhelming majority of ordinary farmers did not look to the bulletins as critical sources of information on improved farm practices. More precisely, improving the quality of agricultural research at the experiment stations did not lead very often to farmers acquiring practical information from experiment stations on agriculture. The conclusions of a 1913 study investigating farm practices across the nation, excluding the West, indicated that only 43.3 percent of the 4,000 farmers polled received bulletins, of which 84.2 percent read them and only 48.2 percent “practiced some ideas obtained from them.” These numbers only tell part of the story. As Roy Scott points out, other data in the study indicate, “44  percent thought that experience was still the only valuable teacher. A mere 6 percent reported that they found station literature to be useful, and an even smaller percentage claimed that they learned much at farmers’ institutes.” Southern stations made important contributions to agricultural science, yet “[w]‌hile there was a growing body of scientific data and information available on improved agricultural practices from the 1880s onward, most of it was not getting to the masses of southern farmers.”27 As a result, few ordinary farmers nationwide relied on bulletins to change their farming practices, particularly tenants and sharecroppers, who relied instead on their own experiences, habits, and traditions. The OES recognized, somewhat belatedly, that they were not reaching farmers nationwide. They did not believe that the root cause of this problem was the character of the investigations. Instead they thought the problem was in devising a more efficient method of influencing farmer practices, other than relying on the printed word. They believed that farmers’ institutes could alleviate this problem. Early exposure to progressive practice was also encouraged.28 However, as the 1913 study pointed out, farmers did not benefit 27 C. Beaman Smith and K.  H. Atwood, The Relation of Agricultural Extension Agencies to Farm Practices, U.S. Bureau of Plant Industry Circular 117 (Washington, DC, 1913), 16; Roy V.  Scott, “Science for the Farmer:  Comment,” Agricultural History 48 (1974):  218–​20; Marcus, Agricultural Science, 220–​21; Gilbert Fite, Cotton Fields No More (Lexington:  University of Kentucky Press, 1984), 79. The best analysis of problems associated with educating farmers is Roy V.  Scott’s excellent book, The Reluctant Farmer: The Rise of Agricultural Extension to 1914 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970). 28 ESR 19 (1907–​8): 301–​3,  904–​5.

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greatly by attending institutes. This may partly explain why so many did attend institutes yet did not change their farming practices. The expansion of county agents and agricultural extension service would, at a later date, play a key role to inform farmers about new and worthwhile farm practices they might consider adopting. The OES, the USDA, and the experiment stations did contribute to upgrading the foundations of agricultural science in the twenty years after the Hatch Act. These experiments, however, did not lead to rapid productivity advances in agriculture. Mechanization, except in the South, accounted for the principal gains in yields per acre. Research on farm implements was carried out in the field crop and rural engineering categories but at quite low levels.29 Attempts to enlighten farmers on the merits of modern practices expanded in the twentieth century, led by the agricultural extension service. Those stations that responded well to the OES urgings or criticisms were more likely to be well-​endowed stations that could afford to invest heavily in fundamental research because of abundant resources. This does not mean that stations that had a low level of resources overlooked the OES recommendations. Their record of research accomplishments may have differed but they still made contributions to agricultural science. Virtually every station, however, had a difficult time reaching ordinary farmers. Uplifting agriculture translated into increasing the stock of knowledge in agricultural science that contributed further on in the twentieth century to productivity advances in agriculture. The OES and experiment station accomplishments were to put agricultural science on the national agenda. Unfortunately, until later in the twentieth century, these important efforts to improve farm practices remained far removed from the everyday experiences of the bulk of the nation’s farmers. Reaching them would have to await another day.

29 Louis Ferleger, “Science, Technology, and Field Implements: Agricultural Research at the Alabama Experiment Station,” Agricultural History 62 (1988): 208–​24; Louis Ferleger, Tools and Time: Southern Farmers after Reconstruction, ­chapter 4, unpublished manuscript.

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Chapter 2 HIGHER EDUCATION FOR AN INNOVATIVE ECONOMY: LAND-​GRANT COLLEGES AND THE MANAGERIAL REVOLUTION IN AMERICA 

The educator’s dream in every country, whether developing or developed, is a national policy that shows that government can be educationally effective and potent without being oppressive. The history of the Morrill Act is highly suggestive […] [the act supported] a national system of state-​based institutions guaranteeing educational opportunity of a kind heretofore neglected but permitting traditional classical education in parallel if desired. No comparable impact or educational advancement in a few years, over a continental empire, could have been made by private philanthropy, state appropriations alone, or a single national university, however great.1 The new land-​grant universities were directed to teach agriculture and the mechanic arts, a purpose almost unique in higher education. At the same time the word “practical” was used, a word that still distinguishes the land-​grant universities from most others. In the terminology of today and tomorrow, “practical” can be defined as “problem solving.” Problem solving becomes possible through research directed to meeting needs. This concept is one of the major building blocks of the land-​grant system. Currently, more than 10 percent of the nation’s undergraduate college students are enrolled in land-​grant institutions, while some 40  percent of the Ph.D. degrees earned each year are granted by these universities.2

1 Eldon L. Johnson, “Some Development Lessons from the Early Land-​Grant Colleges,” Journal of Developing Areas, no. 19 (January 1985): 143. 2 Wayne D.  Rasmussen, Taking the University to the People:  Seventy-​Five Years of Cooperative Extension (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1989), 240.

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Debates about how the United States can maintain its role as the world’s leading economy have stressed the need for a highly skilled workforce that engages in lifelong learning. Although much of this learning takes place on the job, the foundation for the acquisition of skills is the nation’s educational system. As today’s policy makers in business and government contemplate how the American educational system might be restructured to serve the nation’s economic needs, they should consider how that system came to provide a foundation for innovation and economic leadership in the past. Central to the rise of the United States to a position of global economic leadership in the first half of the twentieth century was the “managerial revolution.” This managerial revolution occurred not only in major business corporations devoted to manufacturing, transportation, and communications but also in the developmental state that directed and implemented an innovative strategy for the nation’s agricultural sector. So too, the transformation of the nation’s educational system to support the managerial revolution involved the education of personnel for agriculture and industry. As will be seen, the land-​grant college system was put in place to generate large numbers of agricultural scientists and industrial engineers who constituted the critical human resources of the managerial revolution in government and business. Although the original motivation for federal funding of the land-​grant colleges was to upgrade the social standing of farmers and artisans, the actual transformation of the land-​grant college system was—​like the managerial revolution itself—​in opposition to nineteenth-​century ideology that the foundation of American economy and society was the “Jeffersonian” producer. The training of agricultural scientists for the managerial revolution in the developmental state was critical to the building of the world’s foremost educational infrastructure that, in turn supported the world’s foremost economy. Industrial corporations, which relied on the system of higher education to provide a large and reliable supply of engineers, would not have had the incentive or ability to build this infrastructure on their own. Had the land-​grant college system not been so important to the organizational and technological transformation of agriculture, it would not have been available as a critical institution for the managerial revolution in manufacturing. The integration of the land-​grant college system into the American economy, in turn, placed pressure on the traditional private university system to make itself relevant to the managerial revolution. The land-​grant system of higher education began to take shape after the passage of the Morrill Land-​Grant Act by the U.S. Congress in 1862. By this act, the federal government granted to each state 30,000 acres of land or land scrip for each member of Congress from the state in order to provide colleges

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for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts. This and subsequent legislation produced a nation-​wide system of “agricultural and mechanic arts” colleges (land-​grant colleges) designed specifically to integrate higher education into the American economy. Two important provisos of the Act were that acceptance of the grant must be made within three (originally two) years after the passage of the Act and that a college fulfilling the requirements of the Act must be established within five years after the filing of acceptance in order for the state to retain the proceeds from the sale of the land grant. As Lawrence Veysey summed up the offer that the states could not refuse, “The Morrill Act provided a basic incentive; what the states could obtain for nothing, they were likely to take.”3 By 1870, 36 states had accepted the land grants and at the end of the century there were over 60 land-​grant institutions. It was then up to the state legislatures to allocate the funds derived from the sale of the land or the land scrip. In states such as Wisconsin and Minnesota, the funds were given to existing state universities. The universities simply added agriculture and mechanic arts colleges to their existing literary colleges. In Massachusetts, the grant was divided between the Massachusetts Agricultural College in Amherst and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, each institution fulfilling one of the branches of learning required by the Morrill Act. In California, a new state university was created combining colleges in agriculture, mining, mechanic arts, civil engineering, and letters. Ezra Cornell obtained the land grant of New York by matching it with $500,000 and established the university bearing his name. Indiana, which already had a state university, used its land grant (along with $100,000 and land donated by John Purdue) to start a separate agriculture and mechanic arts college. In Virginia, Mississippi, and South Carolina, colleges for African Americans received a portion of the land-​grant fund. As well as being diverse in structure, the first land-​grant colleges were diverse in their emphases. The Morrill Act provided no guidelines for agricultural and mechanic arts education. The extent to which a given college emphasized such education depended in the short run on its initial structure (e.g., whether or not it was connected to a state university) as well as on the uses to which interest groups in a particular state wished to put the college. In the longer run, however, the influences working to determine the character of education of a particular college reflected the changing realities of economic conditions not just in the state in which the college was situated but also throughout the nation. 3 Lawrence R.  Veysey, The Emergence of the American University (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1965), 15.

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By 1872, agricultural and mechanic arts colleges had been started in 11 states and had been added to state universities in 15 other states.4 A survey made by the U.S. Committee on Education and Labor revealed that of 1,391 students who had graduated from the land-​grant institutions by 1872–​73, 427 had graduated in agriculture, 243 in mechanic arts, and 591 in science and classics. Over two-​thirds of the agricultural graduates came from three colleges—​Cornell, Massachusetts Agricultural College, and the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky.5 There were a number of reasons why the sons and daughters of farmers did not initially flock to the new colleges to study agriculture. In the East, those sons of wealthy farmers who wished to pursue higher education would more likely go to one of the prestigious classical colleges than to an agricultural college. And the poorer farmers and their families, if they wished to continue in agriculture, were likely to move West where 160 good acres of farm land could be obtained as a result of the Homestead Act passed in the same year as the Morrill Act. In the West, the existence of virgin soils that did not require fertilizers for abundant yields along with the habitual overproduction of crops and livestock in the nineteenth century undermined the incentives for farmers to search for more scientific farming methods. In addition, rampant land speculation during these years made it quite profitable for a farmer to exhaust the soil, sell his farm, and move on to another.6 In both the East and the West, then, the land-​grant college failed to attract agricultural students at first. In Indiana, the farmers were also initially apathetic toward agricultural education. Purdue University, established by a combination of land grant and benefaction in 1869, opened its doors in 1874 and received its first continuing appropriation from the State Legislature in 1889. By the late 1880s Purdue had shifted its emphasis to engineering, and additional state appropriations to Purdue in the 1890s were designated for engineering buildings. The president of Purdue laid the same charge of apathy against farmers as was being voiced in the East and West: “The farmers were themselves to blame. They had not awakened to the necessity of a liberal training for agriculture as a profession.”7 The fact is that during the first 25 years after the Morrill Act of 1862 agricultural production did not, and could not, make use of the land-​grant college

4 Alfred C.  True, A History of Agricultural Education in the United States, 1785–​ 1925 (New York: Arno Press, 1929), 116–​17. 5 I. L. Kandel, Federal Aid for Vocational Education (New York, 1917), 98–​99. 6 Samuel P. Hays, The Response to Industrialism: 1885–​1914 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 20–​21. 7 William M.  Hepburn and Louis M.  Sears, Purdue University:  Fifty Years of Progress (Indianapolis, IN: Hollenbeck Press, 1925), 31, 39, 81, 89–​90.

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in any significant way. A major factor motivating the movement for agricultural education at the higher level prior to 1862 had been the noneconomic benefits that would supposedly accrue to the farmers as a result of the establishment of their own institutions of learning. In the decades leading up to the Morrill Act of 1862, proponents of higher education for farmers and artisans had always stressed the need for these “industrious classes,” as the embodiment of Jeffersonian democracy, to have educational institutions that would put them on a par with the “learned classes,” who, with the status attained and social connections made at places such as Harvard and Yale, were becoming increasingly dominant culturally, politically, and economically. At least in the initial stages of development of the land-​grant colleges, therefore, the social and cultural value of the land-​grant institutions had to be judged relative to the standards set by the existing private institutions. To be equal in status to the existing classical institutions, the land-​grant colleges had at least to adopt admissions requirements (in terms of general education previously attained) comparable to those of the private institutions. The private colleges were supplied with adequately prepared students by the privately incorporated academies for secondary education. Prior to the Civil War, public secondary education had begun to take hold only in the urban centers of the Northeastern states.8 While an extensive system of public higher education was institutionalized by the Morrill Act, no extensive system of private secondary education existed to feed the new colleges and universities with students. In 1870 only 2 percent of the 17-​year-​old population were graduating from high schools. This percentage rose slowly in the next two decades and did not reach substantial proportions until well into the twentieth century (see Table 2.1). In Massachusetts, where a more extensive secondary school system existed and where the private American college was solidly represented, an attempt was made to divert the Morrill funds to an agricultural school at the secondary level. This idea was, however, vetoed by the governor’s committee. The example of the Massachusetts educational system and the social and cultural objectives inherent in the land-​grant college idea influenced the land-​grant institutions to take steps to protect the value of their baccalaureate degrees.9 In the long run, the lower level gaps in the educational system were filled. In the short run, there was some compromise on the part of the land-​grant colleges between the desire to increase college enrollment and the desire to be “true” institutions of higher education. The most important short run solution 8 Frederick Rudolph, The American College and University:  A History (New  York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), 281. 9 True, History of Agricultural Education, 143.

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Table 2.1  Percent of 17-​year-​old population graduating from high schools Year

Percent

1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930

2.0 2.5 3.5 6.3 8.6 16.3 28.8

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975), 379.

was to offer preparatory courses within the university structure itself, prior to the normal four-​year college course for a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science. For agriculturally orientated youths who had received adequate secondary education, the college degree had to have scientific content. Within the higher education curriculum, a severe impediment to attracting students was the absence of a body of agricultural knowledge of some practical relevance to actual American agricultural conditions. The accumulation of such a body of knowledge awaited the expansion of agricultural research at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and experiment stations that began in the 1880s. This body of knowledge was aimed at training agricultural scientists rather than the scientific farmers that the original proponents of the land-​ grant colleges had intended. In 1890, the “second Morrill Act” was passed in Congress and gave further financial support to the land-​grant colleges (appropriations to each state of $15,000 per year, increasing by $1,000 per year with an upper limit of $25,000 per year to be reached by 1900). Senator Morrill, a Republican, had been trying without success since 1872 to obtain further federal appropriations for the land-​grant colleges. Opposition to these efforts during the 1870s and 1880s was largely based on the fact that these colleges were not adequately fulfilling their intended purpose of serving the agricultural community.10 Instead they were training lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers, and engineers. Nevertheless, the Morrill Act of 1890 represented a relatively low-​cost way to do something for the farmer. Even though the land-​grant colleges were not primarily in the service of the agricultural community, these colleges were

10 Kandel, Federal Aid,  19–​30.

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always considered agricultural colleges; and money appropriated for these colleges could be represented by politicians as money appropriated for the direct benefit of farmers. The increased financial support ensured by the Morrill Act of 1890 did not accrue to the land-​grant colleges just because politicians were trying to appease farmers who were facing hard times. Perhaps more important in securing these funds was a pressure group that was itself the product of almost three decades of land-​grant college history. As one House Representative put it, “the only lobby I have seen at this session of Congress was the educational lobby composed of the presidents of the agricultural institutions […] They have buzzed in your ears, sir, and in yours, and in the ears of every member on the House.”11 This lobby was probably the most important output of the previous 30 years of higher education in agriculture. During the formative decades of the land-​ grant colleges after 1862, a growing number of agricultural scientists and educators were finding their occupational roles within the colleges. In 1880, realizing that the future of the land-​grant colleges in agricultural education depended on the development of scientific knowledge suited to American agricultural conditions, this group of scientists and educators formed the society for the Advancement of Agricultural Science. By 1890 they had managed to put together a body of agricultural knowledge that could lay some claim to represent satisfactory erudition for higher education. The U.S. government played a central role in promoting this educational agenda. In 1882, 1883, and 1885, the USDA called together representatives of the agricultural colleges to consider the problems of agricultural education and specifically to organize a joint effort of the department and the colleges toward obtaining congressional support for the establishment of agricultural experiment stations. Eighteen such stations were established in the United States (15 at land-​grant colleges) before direct federal support. The Hatch Act of 1887 authorized federal aid to set up experiment stations at the land-​grant colleges, and from 1888 yearly appropriations of $15,000 were given to each state and territory in order to support work on these stations. The Hatch Act greatly influenced the objectives and further development of higher education in agriculture and industry. The USDA had united the separate efforts of the agricultural colleges. The Hatch Act directed these efforts toward agricultural experimentation and research. In 1887, following the passage of the Hatch Act, the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations was organized; and in 1890, the U.S. Office of Experiment Stations (OES) was made a voting member of the Association.

11 Ibid., 53.

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Thereafter, higher education in agriculture and the national interest were inextricably joined.12 The impetus given to agricultural education by the Hatch Act was strengthened by the Morrill Act of 1890. Moreover, the increased federal recognition of agricultural education had its effect in encouraging state recognition in the form of legislative appropriations to the land-​grant colleges. In 1892, the federal government supplied 33  percent of land-​grant college annual income; by 1900, just over 25 percent; by 1914, only 10 percent. The financial support for the experiment stations strengthened the position of agricultural education in the land-​grant colleges because experiment station work added to the agricultural knowledge that could be taught in the colleges. When, therefore, enrollments in agricultural courses began to grow steadily and significantly after 1905 (see Table 2.2), the agricultural commitment of the land-​grant colleges was directed toward experimentation and research and the consequent training of agricultural scientists and teachers. Moreover, the growth of agricultural enrollments continued absolutely and relative to engineering enrollments, despite the declining share of agriculture in the American economy (see column three, Table  2.2). The shift to experimentation and research can be attributed to the scientific propensities of the colleges and to the technological demands of the changing economy. In the last decade of the nineteenth century agriculture comprised about the same share of national income as manufacturing.13 Industrialists had a direct interest in the growth of agricultural productivity as a means of keeping down industrial wages. Railways, farm machinery manufacturers, and other related industrial concerns looked to the agricultural sector for much of their profits. Banks and mail-​order retailers also had important business connections with the agricultural sector. It is noteworthy that while the United States was becoming the world leader in manufacturing, it was also becoming the world leader in agriculture. The productivity of the agricultural sector had a great bearing on the international balance of payments position of the United States. In 1893, the U.S. Land Office announced the exhaustion of arable land on the frontier. Farmers could no longer sap the fertility of their land and buy new farms cheaply. The application of fertilizers to the land they already held became a necessity. The technological needs generated by this shift to more scientific farming meshed well with the experimentations and research 12 True, History of Agricultural Education, 210; Paul E. Waggoner, “Research and Education in American Agriculture,” in Two Centuries of American Agriculture, edited by Vivian Wiser (Washington, DC: Agricultural History Society, 1976), 234, 245. 13 Simon Kuznets, National Income: A Summary of Findings (New York: Arno Press, 1946), 43.

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Table  2.2 Actual and projected enrollments by course in land-​ grant colleges, 1894–​1914 Year

1894–​95 1895–​96 1896–​97 1897–​98 1898–​99 1899–​1900 1900–​1901 1901–​2 1902–​3 1903–​4 1904–​5 1905–​6 1906–​7 1907–​8 1908–​9 1909–​10 1910–​11 1911–​12 1912–​13 1913–​14

Enrolled in agricultural coursea 2,712 2,881 3,053 3,190 4,390 5,035 5,625 NA 2,471 2,331 2,473 2,963 3,930 4,566 5,873 7,241 8,859 10,691 12,462 14,844

Enrolled in mechanic arts course

Ratio of actual to projected agricultural enrollmentsb

5,053 6,093 5,851 6,059 6,730 8,341 9,605 NA 10,535 12,236 13,000 13,937 15,896 17,411 17,435 17,259 16,301 14,847 15,141 16,235

0.71 0.72 0.69 0.70 0.80 0.85 0.83 NA 0.43 0.36 0.36 0.40 0.45 0.47 0.57 0.81 0.96 1.14 1.23 1.30

 Agricultural enrollments prior to 1901–​2 include short course students.  Projected enrollments are the number of agricultural students who would have been enrolled relative to mechanic arts students if both groups had been represented in enrollments in proportion to the relative shares of agricultural and manufacturing in U.S. national income. NA = not available. Sources: I. L. Kandel, Federal Aid for Vocational Education (New York, 1917), 102; Simon Kuznets, National Income: A Summary of Findings (New York: Arno Press, 1946), 43. a

b

proclivities of the agricultural colleges and experiment stations. And the federal government continued to give support to these scientific endeavors. In 1906, the Adams Act authorized the appropriation of $5,000 per year, increasing yearly by $2,000 for five years, after which the appropriation would be $30,000 per year, for the more complete endowment and maintenance of agricultural colleges established under the act of  1862. The development within the agricultural colleges of an agricultural science suited to American soil and climatic conditions would have been a sterile undertaking in terms of increased agricultural productivity without the

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development of institutions through which this knowledge could be diffused to farmers. But the development of such institutions required that the agricultural colleges produce many more agricultural experts than they were producing at the turn of the century.14 The demand for experts from land-​grant colleges emanated from various sources. The USDA had been founded in 1862 largely through the work and influence of the U.S. Agricultural Society. During the next two decades, while the land-​grant colleges were still viewing their main functions as direct cultural and technical training of the farmer, the USDA perceived research in agricultural sciences, productivity enhancement, and facilitation of marketing to be its major functions. The land-​grant colleges failed in their original objective: to raise the status of the farmer in American society. But their alliance with the USDA in an effort to expand experimentation and research met with success. Especially after this alliance, the USDA as well as state agencies employed increasing numbers of college graduates as teachers and research workers, such as that by 1910, the college men constituted the “characteristic personnel” of the department.15 New teaching posts were created for the graduates of the colleges as agricultural education moved into the rural secondary schools with the rise of vocational education after the turn of the century. In 1906–​7, there were 75–​80 high schools in the United States in which agriculture was taught; in 1907–​8, there were 240–​50; and in 1908–​9, 500. By 1915, there were 3,675 institutions in the United States giving secondary instruction in agriculture.16 Some of the secondary vocational education took place under the auspices of the agricultural colleges themselves with the purpose of training farmers and homemakers who lacked the necessary secondary education, finances, or desire to undertake a college program.17 The objectives of these vocational schools at the colleges were much different from those of the preparatory schools that the land-​grant colleges had run in the decades after 1862. The preparatory courses had been a preliminary to college study, and instruction in these courses had been in the normal non-​vocational high school subjects. 14 True, History of Agricultural Education, 231. 15 John M. Gaus and Leon O. Wolcott, Public Administration and the United States Department of Agriculture (Chicago: Public Administration Service, 1940), 5, 15–​16; Grant McConnell, The Decline of Agrarian Democracy (New York: Atheneum, 1969), 28, 9. 16 Fred A.  Shannon, American Farmers’ Movements (Princeton, NJ:  Van Nostrand, 1957), 278–​79; Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876–​1957 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961), 45; Clarence H. Robinson, Agricultural Instruction in the Public High Schools of the United States (New York: Columbia University, 1911), 3; True, History of Agricultural Education, 355. 17 Edward D.  Eddy Jr., Colleges for Our Land and Time:  The Land-​Grant Idea in American Education, 1876–​1957 (New York: Harper, 1957), 107.

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Thus, these preparatory courses were of no relevance to agricultural education unless followed up by a college course in agriculture. The new vocational secondary schools, on the other hand, were designed to diffuse agricultural and home economics skills to its students regardless of whether or not they intended to continue to the next level of education. In 1903, only five colleges had instituted such schools (the duration of the courses was two or three years). By 1909, vocational education at the secondary level was given in at least 29 states. In addition, winter short courses for farmers were given at the agricultural colleges. In 1905, there were 4,631 students in these short courses; in 1910, 11,211 students.18 The integration of the farmers and their wives and their children into the work at the agricultural colleges helped overcome public skepticism that the colleges were too scientific for farmers. At the same time, however, the provision of such instruction at the secondary level had the effect of stratifying the system of agricultural education itself by clearly defining the role of the agricultural college to be the training of agricultural experts and teachers and the role of vocational secondary education to be the training of the men and women who actually worked the soil. Even more important both for creating new jobs for agricultural experts and for diffusing the agricultural methods devised at the colleges was the growth of extension courses. Extension work brought together the interests of industrial, financial, and governmental groups to promote productivity-​improving technologies. Throughout the nineteenth century, experts connected with agricultural colleges or societies had given lectures and addresses to groups of farmers. In the 1870s, these meetings had become institutionalized in Kansas and Iowa in the form of farmers’ institutes. Meanwhile extension movements relating to a variety of scientific and literary fields had been gaining momentum, and in 1890 the American Society for the Extension of University Teaching was organized. From 1890 to 1900, 22 universities instituted extension departments.19 Agricultural extension grew as part of this general movement. It was motivated by the desire to pass on the benefits derived from the work of the agricultural colleges to the whole rural sector. Yet, it was not until the 1890s that the agricultural work within the colleges had been efficiently developed that its widespread diffusion might be of benefit to the mass of farmers. For the United States as a whole, approximately 2,000 farmers’ institutes were attended by over 500,000 farmers in 1899. In 1902, 2,772 institutes were attended by 820,000 people; in 1912, over 7,500 institutes were attended 18 True, History of Agricultural Education, 275. 19 Ibid., 276.

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by 820,000 people; and in 1912, over 7,500 institutes were attended by over 4 million people.20 A powerful private source, namely the Rockefeller-​endowed General Education Board, also promoted extension work. The foundation began to allocate funds to the colleges (via the USDA) in 1906 for the use in the demonstration of new agricultural techniques, thus stamping demonstration work as a highly respectable form of education.21 Pressure for the agricultural colleges to undertake increased extension work emanated from more localized sources. The originator of demonstration work, Seaman Knapp (one-​time president of Iowa State College) pressured farmers to adopt his methods by convincing town merchants and bankers to deny credit to farmers who refused to do so. The American Bankers Association appointed a committee on agriculture in 1909 that became formalized into the Committee on Agricultural Development and Education in 1911. The Bankers Association looked to demonstration work as an agency to enable the farmers to advance themselves.22 The railroads passing through rural areas also had an obvious interest in seeing farmers adopt new farm practices. In addition, mail-​order retailers viewed increases in the productivity of farmers as an extension of their potential markets. The president of Sears Roebuck (a company that, through its mail-​order service, had from the 1880s built a close connection with the farming community) offered $1,000 to each of the first 100 counties to employ a full-​time county agent—​that is, an agricultural expert whose job would be to demonstrate to the people in his county the new agricultural methods. After 1910, manufacturers of farm machinery such as John Deere & Co. and International Harvester Co. maintained their own extension departments in which they employed agricultural experts from the colleges.23 Those who sought to induce farmers to adopt new technological methods formed the National Soil Fertility League in 1911. The league was made up of, according to its president, “nearly all the leading transportation companies and large numbers of financial institutions and manufacturing concerns.”24 This group combined with the USDA, OES, and the agricultural colleges to secure the passage of the Smith-​Lever Act by Congress in 1914. This act provided funding for cooperative extension work between the land-​grant colleges and the USDA. 20 Eddy, Our Land and Time, 131. 21 McConnell, Decline of Agrarian Democracy, 24–​ 25; Gaus and Wolcott, Public Administration, 37. 22 McConnell, Decline of Agrarian Democracy, 31. 23 Ibid.,  30–​32. 24 Ibid., 32.

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Part of these funds were to be used to provide at least one trained demonstrator or itinerant teacher for each agricultural county, thus creating thousands of jobs for the graduates of the agricultural colleges and making the colleges fundamental to the prosperity of the agricultural sector and the economy.25 The Smith-​Lever Act, therefore, institutionalized the means whereby higher education could become fully integrated into the process of agricultural production. Vocational education in agriculture, trade, and industry was institutionalized nation-​wide at the secondary level by the Smith-​ Hughes Act of the U.S. Congress in 1917.26 By 1917 the U.S.  economy was no longer predominately an agricultural economy. Yet the continued interest in, and funding for, higher education in agriculture remained a driving force in the continued expansion and extension of the nation’s system of higher education. Indeed, it can be argued that the involvement of the federal government in leading the transformation of higher education was critical to making it a national system that pursued consistent objectives across all of the states. Business corporations in the manufacturing sector were, of course, involved in this transformation of higher education. As David Noble has shown, the leaders of the managerial revolution in industry provided vision and considerable financial resources to ensure that the system of higher education served their needs for highly educated and properly socialized managerial personnel.27 Even here, however, the mandate of the Morrill Act to serve the “mechanic arts” meant that the nation’s industrial leaders looked first to the land-​grant college to provide this new supply of human resources. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to give the most prominent example, was a land-​grant college. Unlike agriculture, business interests in industry had enough “private” (i.e., corporate) resources to reshape the content of engineering schools without significant help from the state, thus transforming a land-​grant college such as MIT into an essentially “private” educational institution. But even these powerful industrialists made use of a structure of educational institutions that government, on both the federal and state levels, had put in place and then sustained. It is not clear how quickly or effectively the business elite would 25 C. B. Smith, “Work and Relationship Emphasized in the Smith-​Lever Extension Act and in the Discussions Relating Thereto,” in The Spirit and Philosophy of Extension Work, edited by R. K. Bliss, et al. (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1952), 100–​101. 26 True, History of Agricultural Education, 320–​27, 365–​71. 27 David F. Noble, America by Design (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977); William Lazonick, “Strategy, Structure, and Management Development in the United States and Britain,” in Development of Managerial Enterprise, edited by K.  Kobayashi and H.  Morikawa (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1986), 101–​46.

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have created such a system solely on the basis of corporate resources. Yet the quick and effective creation of such a system was critical to the success of the managerial revolution in industry that the business elite was leading. The transformation of the land-​grant colleges to service the managerial revolution in agriculture and industry put great pressure on the traditional classical colleges to alter their course offerings and research agendas. As a result, by the second decade of the twentieth century, the content of a Harvard and Yale education was more like that received at an American land-​grant college than it was like that received at Oxford or Cambridge where, absent a thoroughgoing managerial revolution in Britain, the classical curriculum and research still prevailed.28 The transformation of the land-​grant college system ultimately transformed the entire American system of higher education, in the process rendering the distinction between “private” and “public” meaningless as far as educational content was concerned. Finally, whether in agriculture or the mechanic arts, the Jeffersonian ideals that had led to the passage of the Morrill Act of 1862 had been subverted. The managerial revolution in America was a triumph of collectivism over individualism. It was a revolution in which, circa 1914, virtually all of the participants were white Anglo-​Saxon protestant males—​the same group from which the Jeffersonian yeomanry had drawn its numbers. Through the involvement and cooperation of government and business, these “wasp” males had left these individualist ideals behind to join the managerial revolution. The revolution was, therefore, not just economic but also social. It was in the system of higher education, with the land-​grant colleges in the vanguard, that the social revolution that underlay the managerial revolution occurred. The lesson of this history for today is that the organizational revolution that American business now requires to regain economic leadership will require a social revolution in the content of its system of higher education that may have to be as far-​ reaching as the one that occurred about a century ago.

28 Lazonick, “Strategy, Structure, and Management Development.”

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Chapter 3 ARMING AGRICULTURE: HOW THE USDA’S TOP MANAGERS PROMOTED AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 

For the past century, Americans have relied on business enterprises to make the innovative investments that are the foundation of the nation’s prosperity. The central role of the business corporation in generating economic development might lead one to believe that government is not an important actor in making the social commitment to organizational learning. At best, one might argue, the role of government is to provide infrastructure, such as a public education, but leave the commitment to making innovative investments in organizational learning to business enterprises. Indeed, for more than a century in the United States at both the federal and state levels, governments have been critical in leading the investment in the educational system. But to think that the government’s role in organization learning and economic development ends with such institutional investments is to miss the critical role of the government in those sectors of the economy and for those activities in which business enterprises do not have the incentive or ability to make these investments on their own. In the case of American agriculture, the initial institutional investments in organizational learning were made by the federal government (and, over time, state governments) when they committed funds to support long-​term agricultural research efforts. The government contributed to the building of a collective and cumulative learning process in agricultural research that would lay the foundation for future innovations. As the innovative investments in organizational learning expanded at both the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and state experiment stations (as well as at land-​grant colleges) the results of the accumulation of the collective and cumulative learning process were made known to agricultural county agents. These agents then worked with farmers to make them more aware and knowledgeable about the latest technological advances (such as improved seeds and pest

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control techniques). Many farmers adopted the results of the research efforts—​ a product of organizational learning—​and productivity advance accelerated in agriculture. In this way organizational learning, which emphasizes that innovations are based on a collective and cumulative learning process, became embedded in the agricultural research infrastructure of the United States to such a great extent that American farmers could successfully sustain their competitive advantage over other nations. During the first half of the twentieth century as the United States rose to its position as the world’s leading industrial economy, federal and state governments played a critical role in the agricultural sector. As a result, today less than 2  percent of the working population is employed in agriculture, compared with nearly 17  percent in 1940. Yet agriculture remains central to the U.S.  economy. It provides the American population with an abundant supply of inexpensive food and supplies industry with materials for manufacturing products. Corn, for example, is an important ingredient in making plastics, toothpaste, cosmetics, and many pharmaceutical products. Additionally, agriculture is also one of America’s leading export sectors. In particular, U.S.  agriculture exports significant amounts of grains and feeds, oilseeds, and their products, soybeans and cotton. How did agriculture come to play such an important role in the U.S. economy? Part of the answer is, it had lots of land. But lots of land does not mean high productivity of land. To the contrary, the availability of land in and of itself encourages depleting the productivity of the natural resource rather than enhancing it. The more complete and profound answer is that the United States capitalized on its natural endowments by investing in organizational learning to increase land productivity. As a result, the real value of output per labor-​hour of U.S. agriculture outstrips that of every other nation. Since the late nineteenth century, the key agency for organizing this national system of innovation was the USDA. The USDA initiated and oversaw the development of a nationwide structure of state experiment stations and publicly funded universities—​the famous network of land-​grant colleges that were endowed by the federal government through the Morrill Land Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890. By the middle of the twentieth century, agricultural extension services reached into every county in the Unites States. The land-​grant colleges and their associated experiment stations in turn diffused new agricultural knowledge to millions of farmers. Knowledge also flowed from the farmers back to the government agencies. Improvements in seeds, fertilizers, and disease control as well as development of new agricultural products required that the scientific community—​largely based in the USDA, land-​grant colleges, and state experiment stations—​receive information back from farmers concerning their experiences under widely varying

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climatic and geological conditions. While this government-​supported complex was increasing crop yields, agricultural machinery and implements companies such as John Deere were developing labor-​saving machines that increased the amount of land that could be tilled, planted, and harvested by farmers.1 The critical legislation that began the transformation of American agriculture was the Hatch Act of 1887, which appropriated $15,000 per year to every state. This legislation marked the beginning of governmental actions to contribute to agricultural productivity. The USDA supported the establishment of an experiment station system to aid farmers nationwide, develop links with agricultural scientists across states, and boost funding for agricultural research. It is noteworthy that over time, individual states took over more of the funding of experiment stations, with the states’ proportionate contributions rising steadily. As a recipient of Hatch Act funds, each state in the Union had at least one central experiment station. Immediately after the act was passed, the secretary of agriculture established the Office of Experiment Stations (OES) as the administrative division of the USDA that was responsible for the allocation of Hatch Act funds. Agricultural science received another infusion of funds with the passage of the Adams Act in 1906. Focusing directly on science-​based research, the act designed $5,000 of federal subsidies per year per state to aid investigations at state experiment stations. The USDA and the OES continued to encourage state governments to appropriate more funds to supplement federal aid to agriculture for station activities. USDA and OES encouragement and support reaped vast rewards for experiment station efforts to carry out basic research. As a result, states across the land appropriated more funds to experiment stations. The Smith-​Lever Act of 1914 created a nationwide cooperative extension service for agriculture to spread the word to farmers throughout the land

1 Unless otherwise noted, the principal sources for descriptions of the USDA and OES are Alfred C. True, A History of Agricultural Experimentation and Research in the United States, 1607–​ 1925 (New York: GPO, 1937); Alfred C. True, A History of Agricultural Education in the Unites States, 1785–​1925 (New York: Arno Press, 1969); U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975); Gladys L. Baker and Wayne D. Rasmussen, The Department of Agriculture (New York: Praeger, 1972); Gladys L. Baker, et al., Century of Service: The First Hundred Years of the United States Department of Agriculture (Washington, DC; Centennial Committee, USDA, 1963); Wallace E. Huffman and Robert Evenson, Science for Agriculture: A Long-​ Run Perspective (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1993); Vivian Wiser, ed., Two Centuries of American Agriculture (Berkeley:  Published for the Agricultural History Society by the University of California Press, 1976); Wayne D.  Rasmussen, Taking the University to the People: Seventy-​Five Years of Cooperative Extension (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1989).

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about new farming practices. To support cooperative agriculture and extension work, the act allocated dollar-​for-​dollar matching funds over an initial $10,000 per year per state. The Cooperative Extension Service made the results of research at the USDA, experiment stations, and universities available and accessible to farmers. A state could leverage its funding of county agents because the federal government would kick in more money every time a state upped its contribution. By permitting an increase in the number of county agents, more and more farmers became aware of the latest research and knowledge generated at both the state and federal levels to boost agricultural productivity. The county agents were government employees—​ dedicated public servants—​who became important members of their local farm communities. In 1924, 10 years after the passage of the Smith-​Lever Act, there were 2,500 county agents in the United States spread out over about three-​quarters of the agricultural counties in the nation. Not only did information flow back and forth between extension agents and farmers, the county agents played a central role in organizing farmers on the local level for purposes of education and sharing information. James Wilson, secretary of agriculture from 1897 to 1913, and Alfred C. True, director of the OES from 1893 to 1915, led this national system of agricultural innovation during its formative years. Throughout their careers, Wilson and True both stressed agricultural innovations and learning processes that others have called organizational learning; for example, William Lazonick and Mary O’Sullivan state that “the generation of innovation through organization learning is inherently uncertain. The investment strategy resulting in a higher quality, a lower cost product cannot be known in advance. Furthermore, what is learnt, as the innovation process evolves, changes the conception of the problems to be addressed, the possibilities for their solution, and therefore, the appropriate strategy for continued learning.” It is noteworthy that the source of funds in American agriculture for making these investments in organizational learning came not from the business sector but from the federal and state governments.2 Wilson was initially appointed secretary of agriculture by Republican president William McKinley and continued in office for 16  years, a period that spanned four Republican administrations and three presidents and stands as the lengthiest stint of any cabinet secretary in American history. Known as “Tama Jim” to his friends, Wilson was no stranger to controversy but masterful 2 William Lazonick and Mary O’Sullivan, “Finance and Industrial Development. Part I:  The United States and the United Kingdom,” Financial History Review 4 (April 1997): 7–​8.

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at compromise. He fervently believed that, through the progress of agricultural science, the United States could become the world’s agricultural leader in the twentieth century.3 As secretary of agriculture, Wilson sought to build an organizational structure that would transcend the limits of the nation’s natural resources, as bountiful as they were, and support the development and diffusion of agricultural knowledge. He argued that what was good for the individual farmer was also good for the American economy. He wanted the United States to be not only self-​sufficient in agricultural products but also the world’s largest exporter of foodstuffs. Born in 1835 in Ayrshire, Scotland, Wilson was the eldest son of a deeply religious family of farmers who had cultivated crops in Scotland and America for over two hundred years. He came from a large farming family whose father, with 14 children to feed, decided in 1851 to come to America. The Wilson family first settled in the farm valley of Connecticut, right on the Quinebaug River. Here they raised beef cattle and engaged in truck farming before moving to Tama County, Iowa, a few years later. In 1861, at the age of 26, Wilson left the family homestead to set up his own farm nearby. He now faced the task of making a living for himself and his young family. When he began farming, the principal farm crop in Tama County was wheat. But not on James Wilson’s farm. Rejecting conventional wisdom, Wilson grew corn and raised hogs and cattle. He used part of the corn to feed the stock, which he then sold. The corn–​hogs–​cattle model adopted by Wilson soon became commonplace on Iowa farms. But Wilson was more than a farmer. Even before he took charge of his first farm, he had cherished knowledge and book learning. Although he had received little formal education, Wilson was an avid reader and writer who often amazed his friends by his command of a broad range of topics, and he applied his store of knowledge to both farming and politics. Before Wilson became head of the USDA, he served for several years in the Iowa legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives. Although he was a Republican, he was known in the House as a “Granger Congressman.” Throughout his political career he argued that to support the development of the agricultural sector and the American economy, the government should enter into the business of aiding the farmer. After becoming secretary of agriculture, Wilson spent long hours familiarizing himself with every aspect of the department. Since he had spent many years as a practical farmer he knew that the USDA had its work cut out for it 3 William L. Hoing, “James Wilson as Secretary of Agriculture, 1897–​1913” (unpublished PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1964).

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in carrying out research that would be of use on the family farm. He had also spent years in politics and knew that nothing worthwhile gets done without an efficient organization, which in turn depends on putting the proper people in leadership positions. One of his first actions as secretary was to revamp the organizational structure of the USDA. He eliminated divisions and replaced them with a reinvigorated system of bureaus. The bureaus combined divisions to streamline and integrate operations within the USDA. Wilson believed that selecting high-​quality managers to run his bureaus and delegating authority to them to revamp and reenergize their activities would pay huge dividends. He gave his top bureau managers considerable latitude to run their own affairs. If there were problems—​and there were many over his long stint as secretary—​Wilson worked closely with his bureau chiefs to maintain organizational coherence while permitting each bureau to perform the work in which it specialized. In building the USDA into an efficient organization, Wilson never lost sight of what he believed American agriculture could achieve. He had a dream that America would be the world’s breadbasket and the leading producer of agricultural products, winning every battle with its competitors. The USDA would help American farmers gain new markets through its marketing efforts and scientific work. In this way Wilson was an advocate of economic nationalism. In immersing himself in scientific pursuits, Wilson did not ignore the immediate needs of farmers but remained in close contact with agriculturalists and scientists who were working closely with farmers across the nation. An admirer of Booker T.  Washington and friend of George Washington Carver, he supported demonstration work for disseminating modern farming techniques. In 1910 Wilson wrote in a letter to Carver that “Demonstration work simply means showing people who are not as good farmers as they might be what good farmers throughout the world have known for some time.”4 During Wilson’s tenure the USDA also expanded its work in the fields of scientific research and regulatory activities. With the USDA’s budget and workforce growing rapidly, Wilson relied heavily on his bureau chiefs to keep him informed of the work of the department. In 1909 he commented that “everything runs smoothly […] because I  have grown up with all the new work.” He also achieved a degree of organizational efficiency comparable to corporations in the business sector at the time. Wilson continued to make important policy decisions while the bureaus implemented his directives. He delegated authority well, and his bureau chiefs carried out the mission to enhance and expand scientific research within the USDA.5 4 Ibid., 120. 5 Ibid., 223.

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With considerable input from his bureau chiefs, Wilson formed many committees of scientists from the USDA, the OES, land-​grant colleges, and experiment stations to coordinate policy and work toward operational harmony across administrative units. The bureau chiefs upon whom Wilson relied were not political appointees. Rather, they were highly qualified scientists, with known records and accomplishments, who almost uniformly agreed with Wilson’s vision of making America the world’s leading agricultural producer. Throughout his tenure as secretary of agriculture, Wilson was committed to promoting scientific research at the USDA and the experiment stations. He once remarked that his goal was to so entrench his vision in the USDA “that when I leave here the scientific work will be in such a deep rut that no one would think of putting in charge of it a man who does not love it.”6 By the time Wilson left office in 1913, no other nation in the world had assembled as many talented scientists and managers across the spectrum of agricultural fields in a single organization, whether public or private. In the decades that followed his departure, not even American laissez-​faire ideology could erode the “deep rut” Wilson had dug. As a result, the United States became the world’s largest, most important producer of food, a status attributable to not only his long-​sighted leadership but also the committed efforts of tens of thousands of people working with him in the USDA and elsewhere to build an organization that promoted agricultural development. Wilson was responsible for many important innovations that enhanced the nation’s ability to promote and sustain high-​quality scientific investigations. But his most important achievement may have been securing government funding for a series of new bureaus and simultaneously hiring high-​quality scientific administrators to organize them so that they emphasized basic research and, when necessary, regulation. It was a change that took place simultaneously with corporate reorganizations at Ford, AT&T, and General Electric. Out of the Bureaus of Plant Industry, Entomology, Chemistry, Soils, Forestry, Biological Survey, and Statistics came the development of one of the world’s most formidable research organizations. As the activities of these and new bureaus and later departments expanded, so did the organizational capacities of the USDA. Few managerial organizations in the business sector could match the talent of Wilson and his staff. It is no wonder that no large business organizations emerged in this period to rival or compete with the research agendas carried out by the USDA. Wilson labored tirelessly on behalf of agricultural science in the USDA and earned the respect of his peers across the land and world. Who else but Tama Jim could have orchestrated the transformation of the USDA into one of the 6 Ibid., 124.

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leading scientific institutions in the world? Wilson was an extraordinary public figure in the age of robber barons and the rise of big business. By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the USDA had in place a managerial organization to enhance the nation’s capabilities in agricultural science through uncertain research activities, knowing that down the line research would yield the critical innovations to maintain America’s dominant position in agriculture. Wilson worked with many notable scientists and administrators during his 16  years as secretary of agriculture. Outstanding among them was Alfred Charles True, a humanities graduate of Wesleyan College who eventually rose to the position of director of the USDA’s OES. By all accounts, True was a modest man who spent most of his life as a loyal public servant. He never made headlines. His leadership and vision of the future for American agriculture, however, dramatically altered the way agricultural research was carried out in experiment stations. Like Wilson, True had no training as a scientist but nonetheless understood how important basic research was to economic progress. With vigor and diplomacy, he administered a federally funded research program that would prove beneficial to American farmers and consumers throughout the twentieth century. True’s commitment to raise the level of original research at the experiment stations significantly contributed to Wilson’s quest for supremacy in agricultural science. During the six years from the passage of the Hatch Act until True became the OES director in 1893, his predecessors at the OES criticized experiment station projects that seemed not to serve the interests of agricultural science. What was to be gained, OES directors had wondered, by performing hundreds of tests on different fertilizer combinations that were similar to tests that business enterprises did themselves? Through editorials in the Experiment Station Record, a monthly in-​house publication, the OES directors voiced their support, concern, or criticisms of agricultural scientists. The Hatch Act emphasized that experiment stations should engage in original, basic research. OES directors rejected the idea that stations should function mainly as bureaus of information. Instead, they thought that the future of American agriculture depended on successful experimentation in the lab or field, which could lead to scientific discoveries that were beneficial to agricultural development. Farmers’ institutes and agricultural schools at the land-​grant colleges could then inform farmers of these new practices. The OES director had to be vigilant about the use of Hatch funds because, at the state level, many experiment station directors faced tremendous pressure from various interest groups to spend these funds on nonresearch work. The director of the OES had legal oversight responsibilities for the federal grants

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provided to state experiment stations and kept track of the kinds of research projects stations initiated to avoid unnecessary duplication of experimentation as well as to plan future projects. Squabbles over how Hatch funds should be spent erupted everywhere across the country. Some land-​grant colleges, short of funds, wanted station scientists to do more classroom teaching. But more teaching meant less research. Additionally, many farmers and state politicians remained skeptical about the merits of agricultural science. They wanted stations to provide quick answers to isolated problems. Such trouble-​shooting, however, seriously detracted from the scientists’ work. The scientists, moreover, focused as they were on long-​ term basic research, typically did not possess the specialized expertise required to address more practical, everyday problems. These conflicts were rife when True assumed the directorship of the OES in 1893. Quickly taking up the fight against the opponents of agricultural science, he worked to get experiment stations to focus their research activities on original scientific work. Throughout his career, True had been an avid follower of worldwide developments in agricultural science. He recognized that only agricultural research could increase the yields of the nation’s farms. He noted approvingly the advances that Germany had achieved because of sustained government support for agricultural research. The German system, True frequently pointed out, had, among other things, a commitment to carry out completed research projects over an extended period of time with “highly trained teachers and scientists, a commitment to high-​caliber scientific investigations, and sufficient time and freedom to carry out research projects.”7 In other words, the ability to carry out research projects at the highest level possible over an extended period of time with the resources required to pursue multiple avenues of research. Alfred True never doubted America’s capacity to match or surpass the Germans in agricultural science. There was no doubt that federal and state governments had the financial resources to fund the necessary development of agricultural science and its diffusion to the farmers. As a structure for organizational learning, the United States also had its system of land-​grant colleges and associated experiment stations in every state of the nation. True’s vision of America’s agricultural success began in the laboratory rather than in the field. But his vision did not stop there. In his mind, the products or processes that came from the lab could extend right to the nation’s farmers through demonstration work, farmers’ institutes, county agents, and agricultural schools at the land-​grant colleges. 7 Norwood A. Kerr, The Legacy: A Centennial History of the State Agricultural Experiment Stations (Columbia: Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station, 1987), 2–​3.

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American agriculture had plenty of problems that required attention. True pointed out, for example, that research from the laboratories of the USDA’s Bureau of Animal Industry had provided farmers with the knowledge that cattle ticks caused the spread of a fatal disease that became known as tick fever, which plagued cattle farmers across the Great Plains. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, USDA scientists discovered that cattle ticks transmitted the fever from one animal to another. This breakthrough eventually led to the eradication of cattle ticks and rescued the cattle industry from the brink of disaster. In subsequent years, publicly supported research on disease-​producing organisms, particularly those borne by insects, built on the USDA’s original investigations. True and others hoped that the scientific research carried out at the experiment stations would provide similar breakthroughs. True persistently sought funds for experimental work and his efforts were not in vain. With the passage of the Adams Act in 1906, the movement to advance agricultural science in the experiment stations received a large infusion of funds. Now working closely with Secretary Wilson, True had won an important battle in linking federal and state efforts to promote agricultural science. True was an active director of research, keeping in contact with every experiment station. He traveled extensively by train, both to attend professional agricultural meetings and to visit station scientists as they carried out their work in the lab or field. He did not, however, manage alone. Under the Adams legislation, True put in place a team of specialists at the OES who could monitor and review work done at the experiment stations. The Adams Act contained review procedures that enabled the OES, without the aid of fax machines or e-​mail, to examine every project before it began. The review process was critical, True argued, because expenditures under the Hatch Act were too often used for nonresearch work. He directed that such items as enforcement of agricultural regulations, printing and distribution, correspondence, and administrative tasks should be covered by state appropriations. To avoid the confusion regarding the uses of federal funds that had emerged under the Hatch Act, Wilson gave True administrative authority to prohibit, under the Adams Act, the use of funds for nonresearch work. By Wilson’s action, True had the authority and clout to enforce his standards regarding what constituted agricultural research. True now had a powerful weapon at his disposal:  he could deny funds to a station if it did not engage in “original” research. For True, the key to original research was the extent to which an investigation incorporated science-​based principles. The scientific caliber of the experiment, not its uniqueness, was one measure that he used as his

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standard. Did a project penetrate a subject? Did it involve an attempt to push the limits of knowledge? These were the questions that True asked. True never lost his faith in science. He always set up high-​quality standards for scientists. He believed that “ ‘originality’ in accomplishment, gained by an assault against the unknown, would unfailingly emerge.” He also received continuous support from Wilson. When conflicts arose between bureau chiefs and the OES, Wilson sided with True. In one incident, Wilson commented that “he would see to it that Dr. True’s work is not meddled with; he is too valuable a man to be disturbed.”8 The evolution of USDA–​OES control over this far-​flung system of research reflects the managerial revolution that was taking place in the national system of agricultural innovation in the decades spanning the turn of the century. The directives of Wilson and True illustrate the cooperation between the USDA and the OES in managing the work of the experiment stations to promote agricultural science. This organizational structure strengthened the commitment of agricultural scientists at both the federal and state levels to engage in research that could lead to agricultural innovations down on the farm. Much work still needed to be done, however, to support and protect long-​ term research at the USDA and experiment stations. Both True and Wilson solicited the support of other organizations, particularly the American Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations (AAACES), an organization that offered valuable advice and information to agricultural scientists. The AAACES had been supportive of the USDA efforts to expand agricultural research nationwide. The AAACES and USDA put in place multiple committees to strengthen America’s commitment to agricultural science. Over the years these joint committees would prove invaluable to the USDA’s later efforts to maintain the United States’ dominant position in agricultural markets and agricultural science. By 1920 the USDA had established itself as one of America’s premier managerial organizations. While Wilson and True were no longer in the forefront of organizations at the USDA or OES, their vastly unacknowledged efforts would significantly contribute to agricultural science throughout the twentieth century and beyond. The organization of research that evolved within the USDA would have made a director of corporate research in the business sector proud. During Wilson’s years, funding for the department’s research programs grew rapidly and the commitment to expanding the number and quality of science-​based investigations transformed agricultural research and 8 Hoing, “James Wilson,” 100, 102.

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production so that future generations of Americans could continue to buy and consume plentiful supplies of inexpensive food. Between them, True and Wilson oversaw a managerial revolution in the governmental sector that laid the organizational foundations for the development and utilization of technology in American agriculture far into the future. After they departed from office, federal–​state relations regarding agricultural research went ahead in good and bad times. Over the years, the USDA went through many reorganizations but, as had been the case in earlier reorganizations dating back to the days of Wilson and True, this and subsequent reorganizations of the USDA were a basis for realigning its administrative structure to manage more effectively its new and varied activities. The federal government through a national system of innovation designed to develop and diffuse technology to farmers continues to dominate agricultural science today. The pre-​Depression accumulation of organizational capacities that were the essence of the managerial revolution in agriculture was critical for securing the passage and implementation of future legislation that boosted agricultural research. Central to these organizational capabilities were the USDA, the OES, the land-​grant colleges, the state experiment stations, and the cooperative extension service. As a result, agricultural productivity increased year after year and gave the United States an unparalleled ability to feed a large population at low cost, a very important advantage among developed nations. The ever-​growing number of new discoveries by agricultural researchers resulted in the transformation of American agriculture into an industry heavily dependent on knowledge-​based innovations. The business sector still relies heavily on government expenditures on basic research to generate pretechnology discoveries, precisely the kind that had been emphasized by Wilson and True. Businesses use these discoveries to generate yield-​increasing technology. Over time, the growth of business expenditures over all categories has focused more heavily on applied and development research rather than on basic research.9 Government investments have been important in the fastest growing areas of business research, plant breeding, including biotechnology, because government basic research focuses on investigating the prebreeding characteristics of

9 This section is based on Arei updates:  Agricultural Research, no.  5, 1995, table  2; USDA, Economic Research Service, “The Value and Role of Public Investment in Agricultural Research,” May 1995, 9510; Keith Fuglie, et  al., “Agricultural Research and Development:  Public and Private Investments Under Alternative Markets and Institutions,” USDA, Agricultural Economic Report, no. 75, May 1996; USDA, Inventory for Agricultural Research, 1993; Agricultural Research Institute, “A Survey of U.S. Agricultural Research by Private Industry,” 1985.

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plant matter. Historically, government-​sector research significantly expanded the pool of diverse genetic characteristics from which the business sector could draw to develop finished high-​yielding varieties of corn, soybean, or grains. Even in the hybrid corn area, where business expenditures fund large chunks of basic research, government-​sector research still contributes by researching and developing the pool of genetic traits that make a difference. These genetic traits became the basis for further business basic research discoveries such as specific corn varieties that can be grown in various geographical areas or for different uses in production and consumption. In recent decades, however, there has been considerable criticism of genetically manipulated crops, the green revolution, and genetically modified organisms. This has led to an increase in research and the availability and production of food alternatives (e.g., organic foods) to genetically altered crops. Wilson and True’s organizational efforts made American agriculture the envy of the world. Scientific progress, funded by a government commitment to aid farmers to use advanced farm practices, had been the rallying call of these two heroic public servants who laid the scientific foundations for transforming American agriculture into the world’s most successful producer of foodstuffs. An analysis of the careers of agriculture’s top managers illustrates that their visions for the nation’s agricultural sector were well founded. They were the leaders in a silent battle, a battle to arm America’s agricultural scientists with organizational capabilities to fend off competing economies. It is unfortunate that such organizational innovators go unnoticed by those who write the history of America’s managerial revolution, for Wilson and True stand far above the crowd as representing two Americans who saw the future and secured it. Without their efforts and vision, the United States would not be one of the world’s (if not the world’s) leading agricultural producer.

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Chapter 4 TRANSATLANTIC TRAVAILS: GERMAN EXPERIMENT STATIONS AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE 

The transatlantic process, that is, exchanges and interactions among agricultural scientists, transformed agricultural scientific activity and agriculture both within American experiment stations and in the Office of Experiment Stations (OES). German agricultural research, in particular, significantly contributed to keeping American agricultural scientists informed about the latest scientific advances in their respective fields. Moreover, German exchanges involving experiment station personnel, managers, and scientists of the OES and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) influenced relationships between and among various groups who were vying for the resources that the American federal government had allocated to individual experiment stations. As American experiment stations expanded their work into new areas of investigation, partly as a result of the transatlantic process, they also developed new and different relationships with the business sector and agricultural organizations as well as with the state. In the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century, various groups of American agricultural scientists from experiment stations and agricultural schools, as well as the OES and USDA personnel, traveled to Germany to observe and study first-​hand the agricultural work at institutions of higher learning and experiment stations they had heard and read so much about. When the scientists returned to the United States they told their colleagues and anyone who would listen about the important and innovative scientific work being carried out in German experiment stations. As a result of these exchanges, some directors of American experiment stations hired German scientists, while others sent their personnel to Germany to acquaint themselves with the latest advances and approaches to agricultural research. As more

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researchers returned from trips abroad, they waxed eloquently about the high-​ quality soil and field crop projects they saw as well as expressed their concerns about the extent to which American agricultural research lagged so far behind similar efforts in Germany. Unlike American experiment stations in the 1890s, German experiment stations were internationally known for their high-​quality investigations. The character and quality of German investigations were so frequently cited throughout America and parts of Europe that one could imagine some nations requesting a transplant or a clone from some German station to assist them in their efforts to improve agriculture. Germany’s experiment stations were invoked as the most concrete example of what Alfred True, head of OES from 1893 to 1915, believed was the central mission of experiment stations: to further the progress of agricultural science by engaging in original research. Over the years as these transatlantic exchanges continued, more and more managers and scientific personnel across the nation, whether they had visited German experiment stations or not, began to compare the character and quality of investigations carried out in German experiment stations with their own work. In addition to transatlantic exchanges, the American agricultural scientific community was aided by the OES when they decided to include more information in their publications. In editorials and elsewhere the OES encouraged scientists to pay closer attention to their German counterparts by increasing the number of English translations of German field, soil, and dairy investigations in the Experiment Station Record, a publication that listed and reported on agricultural scientific activities across the nation and the world. While the OES published other documents, including experiment station bulletins, farmers’ bulletins, miscellaneous bulletins, monographs, and circulars, the Record was the one publication agricultural scientists relied on, more than any other, to inform them about diverse approaches and technologies to assist their efforts to uplift American agriculture. One critical aspect of the work carried out in German experiment stations was the emphasis on scientific investigations that involved indoor laboratory experiments. These experiments involved the combining of the sciences of biology, chemistry, and, at times, physics. The emphasis on experiments of this nature meant that the majority of German stations were not locked into carrying out hundreds of similar field tests or frequent fertilizer investigations to determine which brand was supposedly the “best.” For many years fertilizer experiments dominated research activities at American experiment stations because of pressure from farmer groups and state officials.1 1 ESR, 1892–​93: 625; ESR, 1894–​95: 256; ESR, 1895–​96: 633–​34; ESR, 1898–​99: 710; ESR, 1899–​1900: 804.

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The success of German experiment stations can also be viewed as indirectly being an impediment to ongoing scientific work across the world. As Mark Finlay’s pathbreaking work has shown, German experiment stations were not a model—​but they did contribute to the slow development of similar scientific work elsewhere. It is, of course, the case that each nation had its own internal history that significantly determined the extent to which it promoted and funded original agricultural research, but the success of German experiment stations at a minimum may have hindered or slowed similar scientific work elsewhere, especially in Europe. It is against this background that German experiment stations sustained their global competitive research advantage in agricultural science. In many European countries there was little incentive to support the establishment of a network of experiment stations or agricultural scientific efforts in general, including educational programs, as long as they could send their scientists to Germany for training and borrow the best of agricultural science from the Germans. The problem with relying on Germany was that their agricultural scientific innovations might or might not be useful to a specific country depending on the extent to which the country’s resource endowments (soil, climate, and crop conditions) were similar to what German agriculturists faced. The experiments carried out by German agricultural scientists were specifically oriented toward increasing the stock of useful agricultural and scientific knowledge. As a result, they involved unusual learning processes, what others have called organizational learning. The emphasis on indoor laboratory testing meant that the learning process was as important as the success rate. By emphasizing laboratory testing that involved organizational learning scientists could work on long-​term projects to increase the stock of useful knowledge for all scientists irrespective of their relationship to the experiments. The German experiment stations put in place an organizational structure to ensure that a core group of scientists within the station could carry out high-​quality long-​term experiments while simultaneously another small group could react, when necessary, to short-​term and immediate problems. The emphasis on long-​term research was on experimentation, not just results. Agricultural research projects were carried out that did not necessarily center on ongoing cultivation or processing difficulties but that instead focused on some scientific problem related directly or indirectly to agriculture in general. The scientific orientation of these projects involved principles that were common to nineteenth-​century German science; that is, that scientific research could ultimately contribute to scientific knowledge, as well as to specific problems confronting German agriculturists. The German investment in agricultural science had significant financial backing not only from the

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business sector and/​or agricultural organizations but also from the state to support and encourage investments in organizational learning. Many German experiment stations, such as the ones in Prussia, Wurttemberg, and Bavaria, were organized to carry out high-​quality experiments in the areas of animal metabolism, seed control, agricultural chemistry, plant physiology, soil tests, and crop-​ specific investigations. Autonomous and decentralized, each station had a detailed plan associated with its set of projects, explicit procedures for experimentation, appropriate and high-​quality equipment, and instructions on how to write up the results of the experiments. There was no master plan, however, for how to build and sustain an experiment station. The size of the experiment station often differed by location, while the nature of the work carried out varied depending on the circumstances of local and regional agricultural conditions and the extent to which a station received full financial backing from government sources and/​or partial subsidies by business and agricultural organizations. Despite the diversity in experiment station work, “throughout the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s, Germans’ reputation in the agricultural sciences was unsurpassed […] by 1900, virtually every Western nation had employed German citizens to direct newly established institutions.”2 In the late nineteenth century, if you were interested in the state of agricultural science in general, you consulted the Germans and sent your best people to their laboratories, experiment stations, or institutions of higher learning. Moreover, if you wanted to determine the state of the field in a specific area, you read what the German scientists had written and discovered about the topic. Finally, if you wanted to build an experiment station or expand existing facilities, you visited German stations and duplicated the aspects of their stations that suited your purposes. What activities did German experiment stations engage in that attracted so many European and American scientists to their facilities? In 1889, for example, 63 German experiment stations employed 73 directors and 222 scientific specialists, plus hundreds of other workers and engaged in the following kinds of activities: Twenty-​nine stations exercise control of fertilizers, twenty-​seven of feeding stuffs, and thirty-​three of seeds, by analyzes and inspection of commercial wares. Four stations are charged with the inspection of foods and 2 Mark R.  Finlay, “Science, Practice and Politics:  German Agricultural Experiment Stations in the Nineteenth Century” (unpublished PhD diss., Iowa State University, 1990), 301–​4, 367. See also Daniel Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998), 319, 321, 324–​25, 327, 330–​31.

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beverages. Eight stations are organized with especial reference to more purely scientific research. Fifteen are conducting investigations in vegetable physiology, nine in animal physiology and nutrition, two on soils, three in dairying, four in sugar-​beet culture, two in fruit and vine culture, one in agricultural physics, eight in chemistry or chemical technology, four in agricultural technology, two upon commercial agricultural products (especially wine and tobacco), and three upon beer brewing. Nine of the stations have vegetation houses for experiment in vegetable physiology, nine have experimental fields, seven have feeding stalls for experimental purposes, four have experimental gardens, two are equipped with Pettenkofer’s respiration apparatus, and one with a horse dynamometer.3 Prior to 1870, some argue that Germany was not the world’s leader in agricultural science. In fact, “Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain, and Denmark, were on what may be called the ‘efficiency’ frontier in 1870. With their specific resource combinations, these countries had realized the highest levels of agricultural production per hectare and per head.”4 In these years agricultural scientific developments in chemistry in France and England were closely watched by German scientists who organized and carried out experiments based on this important work. By 1870 German scientific inroads in agricultural research were well established. While many factors contributed to the resurgence of German agriculture, “it was the Germans who set the example in the organization of a more or less nation-​wide system of agricultural research and extension services, largely sponsored by the state. Between 1870 and 1914 a number of core countries adopted the German […] [approach], as did the United States and Japan, but in the United Kingdom and France these institutions were only set up after the First World War.”5 Germany’s agricultural productivity grew faster than any other European nation. Between 1850 and 1880, German annual average agricultural productivity grew 1.5 percent, with France and Belgium standing at 1.1 percent and the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Europe recording productivity rates that were half or less than those of Germany.6 As a result, over the 3 ESR, 1890: 175–​76. 4 J. L.  Van Zanden, “The First Green Revolution:  The Growth of Production and Productivity in European Agriculture, 1870–​ 1914,” Economic History Review 44 (1991): 219. 5 Ibid., 237; Finlay, “Science, Practice and Politics,” 333–​34; Colin Heywood, “Agriculture and Industrialization in France, 1870–​1914,” in The Nature of Industrialization, edited by P. Mathias and J. Davis (New York: Blackwell, 1996), 112. 6 J. H.  Clapham, The Economic Development of France and Germany, 1815–​1914 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1955), 209–​10.

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1880–​1920 period, German agricultural productivity growth far outstripped that of all of Europe.7 The Netherlands efforts to support agricultural science were influenced by the success of German experiment stations. From 1880 to 1920 there were several attempts by the Netherlands (as well as by Belgium) to build, maintain, and promote agricultural science so that they could compete agriculturally with Germany. While the ability of any nation to sustain long-​term agricultural science-​ oriented activities in experiment stations depends on many factors, critical among them was continuous and committed funding, usually from government sources.8 Sustained government support in agriculture in the Netherlands was “almost non-​existent until the First World War.”9 In different ways, but with similar results, the lack of government support in France made it extremely difficult for the nation to establish a network of experiment stations similar to those of Germany. This may explain why French agriculture had “far too many marginal farms operating, and […] most peasants have no easy access to capital for improvements. French agriculture increasingly became a museum with exhibits ranging from the medieval to the ultramodern.”10 The expertise and success of German experiment stations made it unlikely that a nation could catch up quickly or even approach the level of scientific 7 Heywood, “Agriculture and Industrialization in France,” 47; Clapham, Development of France and Germany, 177–​ 78, 203, 214; G.  Wright, France in Modern Times (New York: W.W. Norton, 1995), 261–​62; H. V. Molle, “Het Belgisch landbouswbeleid in de wisselwerking tussen economisiche en sociale toestanden, politiek en administratie 1884–​1984,” Agricontact, koerier van het Ministerie van Landbouw 154 (1984): 1–​141; B. R. Mitchell, International Historical Statistics, Europe:  1750–​1993 (New  York:  Greenwood Press, 1998a, 4th edition), Table I2, 894–​98; B.  R. Mitchell, International Historical Statistics, Europe: 1750–​1993 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1998b, 4th edition), Table I2, 751; Harry W. Paul, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: The French Scientist’s Image of German Science, 1840–​1919 (Gainesville:  University of Florida Press, 1972); J.  J. Beer, The Emergence of the German Dye Industry (Urbana:  University of Illinois Press, 1959), 15–​16, 111; G. Haines IV, “German Influence upon Scientific Instruction in England, 1867–​1887,” Victorian Studies 1 (1957–​58): 218, 236; Finlay, “Science, Practice and Politics,” 341–​46; Sir E. John Russell, “Rothamsted and Its Experiment Station,” Agricultural History 16 (1942): 161–​83; Sir E. John Russell, A History of Agricultural Science in Great Britain, 1620–​ 1954 (London:  George Allen and Unwin, 1966), 174, 195–​96; Nicholas Goodard, Harvests of Change: The Royal Agricultural Society of England, 1838–​1988 (London: Quiller Press, 1988), 167. 8 Finlay, “Science, Practice and Politics,” 327–​31; Molle, “Het Belgisch landbouswbeleid.” 9 Michael Wintle, “Agrarian History in the Netherlands in the Modern Period: A Review and Bibliography,” Agricultural History Review 39 (1991): 68. 10 Wright, France in Modern Times, 263; Heywood, “Agriculture and Industrialization in France,” 109.

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knowledge accumulated within German experiment stations and agriculture in general prior to 1920. In order for non-​German nations to compete with Germany’s abundance of organizational capabilities they would have had to support and sustain an accelerated effort involving a combination of business, government, and agricultural organizations that would have been willing and able to increase spending on research activities in agricultural science. The only country to approach and surpass Germany after 1920, the United States, had to transform its agricultural infrastructure under very different conditions because of mixed support from the business sector and statewide and national agricultural organizations. In the case of the United States, the state (i.e., the federal government) put in place a structure that was transformative because it encouraged and supported organizational learning to accelerate original research activities both within the USDA as well as at individual experiment stations. Throughout the nineteenth century American scientists who returned from trips to Germany mentioned the fascinating combination of institutional connections that were characteristic of German experiment stations. Some scientists believed that the important and innovative scientific work being carried out in German experiment stations would be difficult to achieve unless there was a dramatic change in how agricultural science was carried out in the United States. During the antebellum period, several prominent American agricultural scientists visited German stations and scientific institutions. Others sought advanced degrees from German institutions of higher learning that had programs in agricultural science, particularly chemistry. While many realized that it would be difficult to replicate the German approach in the United States, they did recognize that particular aspects of German agricultural experimentation and research were important. In the 1850s Samuel W.  Johnson, an early leader in agricultural science in the United States and chemist at the Connecticut State Agricultural Society, went to Germany at about the time the German experiment stations movement was sweeping the country. He studied there for a few years and his experience in Germany reinforced his lifelong dedication and commitment to promote agricultural experimentation and research in the United States. Throughout his life he encouraged others to visit Germany and attempted to “institutionalize research in agriculture” in the United States based on what had been achieved in Germany.11 11 H. C. Knoblauch, State Agricultural Experiment Station: A History of Research Policy and Procedure (Washington, DC: GPO, 1962), 14–​17; Norwood Allen Kerr, The Legacy: A Centennial History of the State Agricultural Experiment Stations, 1887–​ 1987 (Columbia:  Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station, 1987), 4–​5, 11. In the 1880s Johnson and Wilbur Atwater, a chemist who had spent two years carrying out research in German

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In the years before the Hatch Act, future directors of American experiment stations who had traveled to Germany used the transatlantic experience as a basis for their views on what an equivalent American system of experiment station might accomplish. Germany had more than 70 experiment stations by the mid-​1870s, so that when Dr. George Cook, the first director of the New Jersey experiment station, visited experiment stations in Germany in 1870 and 1878, he remarked that it was “like being admitted to a new world.” Cook recruited scientists who had been trained in Germany, including Dr. Arthur Neale, who was appointed the first chemist of the New Jersey experiment station and who noted in his resume that “He had studied at the University of Griefswald, in Germany, and worked in […] Halle as assistant to Prof. Max Maerker.”12 J. H. V. Scovill, from Cornell University’s College of Agriculture, who had visited German experiment stations wanted the New York station to focus on what he had seen, that is, “farm systematization.” By this he meant the German emphasis on having “experimental stations, model experimental farms, or experimental farms.” Professor George C.  Caldwell, who taught agricultural chemistry at Cornell University, wanted the New York Station to adopt the German emphasis on agricultural chemistry, noting that “ ‘thirty or more’ German experiment stations […] employed ‘an able chemist and one or more assistants’ to solve agricultural problems.” In the debate surrounding the Hatch Act, several prominent scientists cited the achievements of German experiment stations as exemplifying what the United States might expect from its investment in agricultural science.13 Other American agricultural educators and scientists who were active in the experiment station movement also sought out personnel whom they had met in Germany or those who had been educated in German institutions of higher learning or had visited agricultural facilities there. For example, Evan experiment stations, also sought to have American stations located next to institutions of higher learning that had agricultural schools, also a hallmark of German stations. See pp. 22–​24. 12 Kerr, The Legacy, 3; Carl R.  Woodward and Ingrid N.  Waller, New Jersey’s Agricultural Experiment Station, 1880–​1930 (New Brunswick:  New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, 1932), 19, 128, 214. Cook also had influence on other experiment stations precisely because of his emphasis on German approaches to agricultural science. On his contribution to the Arkansas agricultural experiment station, see Stephen F. Strausberg, A Century of Research: Centennial History of the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, 1888–​ 1988 (Fayetteville: Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, 1989). 13 Alan I. Marcus, Agricultural Science and the Quest for Legitimacy (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1985), 66–​67, 154, 156. The editor of the local agricultural paper focusing on livestock disagreed with Caldwell and argued that German experiment stations spent too much time on chemical problems and not enough on other pressing issues. See also other comments either in support or against the German approach, 68, 70.

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Pugh and S. W. Johnson, both of whom played a critical role in the development of agricultural education and experiment stations in Pennsylvania, met in Leipzig, Germany. Johnson, in particular, had worked and been taught by Liebig and had been trained at both the Leipzig and Munich universities.14 A large number of American agricultural scientists had German roots and had received advanced degrees at German universities. For example, Eugene W. Hilgard received a PhD in chemistry from Heidelberg University in 1853. He played a prominent role in developing agricultural educational and scientific programs in Washington, Michigan, Mississippi, and especially in California. In the early 1870s he “proposed a vibrant collaboration between the state college and local agricultural societies centered on a series of experimental farms or stations. He recommended that this system, common in Germany, be brought to the United States.” The agricultural scientist Wilbur O. Atwater based his proposals for a station in Connecticut on his experiences in Germany where he had studied. Charles A. Goessmann, a professor of chemistry at the Massachusetts Agricultural College and director of the experiment station in 1882, had grown up in Naumberg, Germany, and received a PhD from the University of Gottingen. Charles W. Silver, an agricultural chemist, who had studied agricultural science at the University of Halle, promoted education and research at the Illinois Industrial University, a forerunner of the experiment station. George Chapman Caldwell, a professor of agricultural chemistry and one of the leaders at the agricultural school at Cornell University, had studied in Europe, in particular at the prominent German university in Heidelberg. Edwin W.  Allen, who took over as director of the OES in 1915 when Alfred True moved to head the federal extension agency, had been trained as a chemist in Germany, which undoubtedly enhanced his stature at OES (where he had worked since 1890) and his chances of heading the OES.15

14 For a discussion of the ways agricultural education in Germany affected similar efforts and experiment station work, see Alfred Charles True, A History of Agricultural Education in the United States, 1785–​1925 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1929), 69, 127, 193, 258. 15 Steven Stoll, The Fruits of Natural Advantage: Making the Industrial Countryside in California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 49; Kerr, The Legacy, 58; True, History of Agricultural Education, 161–​63, 178, 189, 259; Marcus, Agricultural Science, 72. See also similar attempts in Massachusetts and the invoking of the German approach, 83. Finding trained specialists to handle the myriad problems confronting station scientists was a source of concern as well for the OES. In one Record editorial the editor wrote about how the German Empire approach to procuring qualified personnel worked and how the experiment stations sought government support and involvement so that the chemists who were hired to examine food materials were as qualified as the scientists who carried out station work. See Experiment Station Record 2, no. 11 (1891): 626–​27.

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In one issue of the Record, the director of the Delaware College Experiment Station, A. T. Neale, recounted in exacting detail (five pages of text) his trips to many stations in Germany, especially to the sugar beet district of Province of Saxony and in particular his time spent at the world-​renowned Halle station with one of the giants of German agriculture science, Professor Max Maerker.16 In a May 1891 Record editorial the editor again noted the impressive achievements at the Halle station in Prussia, stating that it is “the largest station in Europe.” The editorial notes how experiment stations in Germany moved from the countryside to the city so that they could be close to universities to maintain close contact with the scientific community.17 True noted that German individual stations confine themselves to fewer subjects of investigation and study them more deeply.18 True believed that if you did not engage in and support original research projects, what we now call organizational learning could not have or was unlikely to take place. American experiment stations carried out far too many tests and studies that were responding to immediate concerns; solving these problems might alleviate short-​run agricultural difficulties and problems, but such an approach did not by itself generate long-​term improvements in agricultural practices or productivity. To encourage original research as well as strengthen the organizational learning process at American experiment stations, many scientists, especially Alfred True and the secretary of agriculture, James Wilson, wanted the federal government to provide specific funds for the direct funding of “original research” projects. They and others encouraged Congress to pass legislation to provide designated funds to support original research in agricultural science. Such legislation was put in place when Congress passed the Adams Act in 1906. As a result, American experiment stations received another infusion of funds but this money had to be spent on science-​based research. The Act specified that each state would receive $5,000 per year of federal subsidies to aid agricultural science investigations at state experiment stations. The USDA and the OES also continued to encourage state governments to appropriate more funds to supplement federal aid to agriculture for station activities. USDA and OES encouragement and support also led to state legislatures across the land

16 ESR 2, no. 3 (1890): 93–​97. 17 Ibid., 2, no. 10: 542–​46. 18 Ibid., 1, no. 4: 177; George Grantham, “The Shifting Locus of Agricultural Innovation in Nineteenth-​Century Europe:  The Case of Agricultural Experiment Stations,” in Technique, Spirit, and Form in the Making of the Modern Economies: Essays in Honor of William N.  Parker, edited by Gary Saxonhouse and Gavin Wright (New  York:  JAI Press, 1984), 201.

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appropriating more funds to experiment stations to support original research as well as routine station activities. Transatlantic exchanges prior to 1906 probably contributed to the passage of the Adams Act. These exchanges between America and Germany involved both American scientists visiting German stations and German scientists visiting American facilities. At the beginning of the twentieth century when Germany was starting to fall behind American inroads in agricultural science, it still stood far above its European competitors. German experiment stations continued to carry out original agricultural research, just as the Americans, to boost productivity as well as expand efforts to be globally competitive. It was also the case that more transatlantic exchanges between the United States and Germany continued well into the twentieth century. As late as 1904 some American agricultural colleges were still organizing classes in German and urging administrators to support German modern language classes so that their agricultural students could learn German and read scientific results from original sources.19 American funding of agricultural science mirrored certain aspects of the German experience. The state, however, played a different role in the United States after the passage of the Hatch and Adams Acts. First, even though American agricultural science was achieving some startling results, most U.S.  experiment stations did not emphasize indoor laboratory experiments to boost agricultural productivity until early in the twentieth century. Second, while increased funding was available, the battle over how the additional resources for experiment stations should be allocated did not cease partly because American stations had to confront various agricultural groups or state legislators or state agencies that sought to redirect station activity away from scientific research to more immediate agricultural problems. These individuals, groups, and agencies wanted agricultural scientists to focus their efforts on solving local or regional problems. Directors of state experiment stations increasingly found themselves being pushed and pulled in several directions. One group, elected and appointed state government officials who funded part of station expenses, believed station work should be centered on an agenda of statewide crop-​specific problems. This approach was opposed by officials from the OES, particularly Alfred True, who monitored station work and expenditures on behalf of the USDA. The OES wanted station work to center on analyzing feed stuffs, dairying, seed investigation and control, systematic variety tests, and long-​term detailed field studies in a few lines of inquiry that may have been important either locally or regionally but that emphasized cooperative work in the field and laboratory. And lastly, 19 Julius Terrass Willard, History of the Kansas State College of Agricultural and Applied Science (Manhattan: Kansas State College Press, 1940), 462.

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farmers and farmers’ groups wanted experiment stations to focus their efforts on immediate or current agricultural difficulties plaguing specific farmers. The previous examples have highlighted some of the transatlantic exchanges by American agricultural scientists and how scientists viewed German agricultural research, training, and the organization of experimental work. Unfortunately there is no data set available that recorded the number of visits American scientists made to Germany or the number of times station or OES or USDA personnel cited or quoted German work. It is possible, however, to glean some other aspects of the transatlantic process of exchanges and interactions by examining accounts of the process that appeared as citations, articles, notes in the Experiment Station Record as well as other sources. These sources are inherently limited since we do not know what the editorial policy of the Record was, but it appears that even with several changes in the editorship of the Record, German scientists and Germany’s progress in agricultural science appeared more frequently than the work of any other nation. In the fourth issue of the 1890 Record, the editor describes the progress achieved by German stations since they established their first experiment station in 1851. The editorial notes include three pages of text and three pages of statistics that present a detailed portrait of German experiment stations. In the March 1891 Record, the editorial notes include a change of policy of what will be included in the publication, namely: “With the present number of the Record a beginning is made in giving brief accounts of European inquiry in lines in which our stations are working.” The editor notes that work in Germany, France, and England at experiment stations as well as laboratories and universities will be reprinted in the Record because “the questions investigated there are the same as those on which our stations are working, or involve the abstract principles on whose solution the successful work of our station depends.” The editorial concludes that the abstracts selected will be limited because of space but will focus on accounts that “are most intimately connected with the work of our stations in certain lines.”20 These abstracts were probably more influential than many realized since the American station agricultural scientific community carried out many experiments that were reported in the Record and noted that the experimenter was following or building on an experiment by a German scientist, such as the long report that appeared by H. W. Wiley on sugar beets in 1890. Over the next 20 years the Record includes hundreds of long or longer articles on virtually every aspect of German agriculture science.21 20 ESR 2, no. 8 (1891): 389–​90. 21 ESR 1, no. 4 (1890): 175. For other citations of abstracts, see same year, vol. 2, no. 3: 93–​ 97, n. 4: 140; 1891, vol. 2, n. 8: 389–​90, 459, n. 9, 522–​35, n. 10: 542–​43, n. 11: 627;

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In 1897, Dr. J. T. Anderson, first assistant chemist at the Alabama experiment station, replicated fertilizing experiments on cotton “according to the methods employed for other crops by Dr. Paul Wagner, the German investigator.” A New Jersey experiment station entomologist, Dr. John Smith, visited Europe twice, especially Germany, in 1900 and 1910, “studying their methods of insect control and of the teaching of entomology.”22 Transatlantic exchanges promoted experiment station agricultural research despite various ongoing battles over the extent to which station work should center on local and regional problems. The president of the American Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations and director of the Pennsylvania experiment station, Henry P. Armsby, noted in his presidential address in 1898–​99 that The German experience gave unmistakable proof that the Liebig-​like investigators, though admittedly professional teachers, owed their discoveries, first, to their intensive scientific training and, second, to their remarkable freedom to use their time and their skills in research, not in undergraduate teaching duties. Furthermore the German experience showed conclusively that the most noted agricultural scientists, when permitted greatest freedom to do basic research, produced the discoveries having the most useful and practical application to farming […] American college authorities need not fear that American researchers, if given similar latitude, would ignore the farmers’ welfare. If American colleges did not adopt the German policy […] they could not produce the type of meaningful research which alone could retain them, in future years, the popularity currently attained by station efforts.23 In this speech and many more similar ones, station directors, scientists, and OES and USDA officials proclaimed that station research would help farmers and urged college authorities, state legislators, farmers, and others to support station personnel engaging in original research. Although transatlantic exchanges clearly opened up new avenues of research for American agricultural scientists, it is difficult to pinpoint the extent of the influence these exchanges had on agricultural productivity. Past ESR, 1891, vol. 2, n. 11: 684–​85, n. 12: 759–​63, and other citations in various issues of the Record, 1890–​1910. On the quoting of German work on sugar beet research, see ESR 2, n. 12 (1891), Bulletin 30: 748–​49. 22 Ninth Annual Report of Agricultural Experiment Station of the A & M College, Auburn, Alabama (Montgomery: Brown Printing, 1897), 14. 23 Knoblauch, State Agricultural Experiment Station,  76–​77.

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studies have documented that agricultural research has yielded high returns on investments throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Scholars have estimated an annual rate of return on American agricultural research expenditures of 65 percent from the end of the Civil War to the middle of the 1920s. For the reminder of the twentieth century, the rate of return estimates range from 33  percent to 65  percent higher than the earlier period. More impressively, several studies strongly suggest that federally sponsored research has significantly contributed to overall productivity growth rates.24 What impact did the transatlantic process have on the record of agricultural achievement illustrated by the previous statistics? It is possible that both the rate of return numbers and productivity growth rates would have been considerably lowered if these exchanges between American and German scientists had not occurred. The transatlantic process was knowledge enhancing as well as a serious source of competitiveness for American agricultural scientists. It involved transformative experiences that accelerated ongoing debates on the nature and character of agricultural science and work carried out in experiment stations. The scientists who immersed themselves in the transatlantic process, either by visiting Germany or by closely following the results of German original research, had a difficult time gaining support for original research in the United States because they had to fend off various local, statewide, and national groups that wanted station work to address immediate crop-​specific problems. The results of the research carried out by experiment station personnel (as well as cooperative work with the USDA) changed the life of American farmers. Better farm techniques, higher yields, improved pest control, to name a few advances, certainly benefited farmers and improved their economic lives. Farmers’ concerns, however, were usually local and regional. Agricultural scientists’ research concerns were abstract, global, and scientific. It is likely that supporting an approach to agricultural research that emphasized maintaining high-​quality research activities in the name of science confused or angered farmers nationwide. It is hard to imagine that farmers who were confronting problems associated with railroads, banks, global markets, declining prices, overproduction, and reduced incomes cared much about the long-​ term benefits of agricultural science.

24 Robert Evenson, et  al., “Economic Benefits from Research:  An Example from Agriculture,” Science 205 (1979); Zvi Griliches, “Research Costs and Social Returns:  Hybrid Corn and Related Innovations,” Journal of Political Economy 66 (1958):  419–​31; Vernon W.  Ruttan, “Bureau Productivity:  The Case of Agricultural Research,” Public Choice 35, no. 5 (1935): 529–​47.

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The transatlantic process in American agriculture, in particular the exchanges among German and American scientists between 1850 and 1920, was a critical link to the United States’ success in expanding the experiment station infrastructure and upgrading the quality of U.S. agricultural research nationwide. However, while American experiment station scientists were in a race to catch up with the research achievements of the German agricultural scientific community, they chose not to make the many serious immediate problems facing the ordinary American farmer their number one priority. As a result, although the years between 1880 and 1920 were years of great change and achievement for American experimental station personnel and agricultural scientific advance, they were also years of great frustration for many American farmers. During this period American farmers faced many serious problems and their frustration with government organizations, including experiment stations, ultimately resulted in social upheaval and organized protest movements. It was not until the post-​1920 period that American farmers finally reaped some of the rewards of the long-​term investment in original agricultural research, which ultimately changed the nature and character of farm life.

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Chapter 5 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE: GERMAN EXPERIMENT STATIONS, 1870–​1920 

Germany’s agricultural success had a considerable impact on more than Europe’s ability to compete in global markets. In fact, German experiment stations from 1870 to 1920 were a barrier to the establishment and expansion of experiment stations in the North Sea area (Norway, Denmark, Scotland, England, the Netherlands, Belgium) and a deterrent to ongoing work in countries where stations were already carrying out agriculturally oriented research projects. Each country, of course, had its own internal history that influenced the extent to which it promoted and funded original agricultural research. Nonetheless, the success of German experiment stations at a minimum hindered the potential deployment of resources that could have been devoted to original research projects to boost North Sea agricultural productivity. It is noteworthy that German experiment stations had sufficient financial backing not only from the business sector and/​or agricultural organizations but also from the state to support and encourage investments in organizational learning to promote innovation. Germany’s agricultural success and its emphasis on organizational learning were dependent on the “high degree of interdependence and mutual interaction between government policy formations in diverse areas, from the fiscal to the socio-​political.”1 As a result, the agricultural sector significantly contributed, as well, to the nation’s industrial development.2 It also enabled 1 John Perkins, “The Organisation of German Industry, 1850–​1930: The Case of Beet-​ Sugar Production,” Journal of European Economic History 19, no. 3 (Winter 1990): 550–​51. 2 As the table below suggests, Germany’s industry benefited greatly by the success of the agricultural sector.

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the nation to feed its rapidly growing population, expand food exports while reducing imports, and become relatively self-​sufficient in foodstuffs.3 In 1870 Germany’s population was the largest of the North Sea countries, with one and a half million more people than France.4 By 1920 Germany’s population had grown by more than 50 percent and stood as the largest population of the region, with 40 percent more inhabitants than France. In addition to a rapidly growing population, for most years Germany’s agricultural labor force was larger than that of any other North Sea nation, yet accounted for less than 20 percent of the total labor force because of the rapid growth in agricultural productivity.5

Proportions of national product by sector of origin (%)

1870–​1874 1880–​1884 1890–​1894 1900–​1904 1910–​1914 1920–​1924

Germany

France

Denmark

A

I

A

I

A

I

38 36 32 29 23 16

32 33 37 40 44 48a

41 38 35 34 32 NA

33 35 38 41 41 NA

49 42 37 31 30 25

20 20 22 26 24 23

Notes: a 1925–​29. A = Agriculture (usually including forestry and fisheries); I = Manufacturing, mining, and construction (usually including utilities). There is no product-​by-​sector data available for the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Source: B. R. Mitchell, International Historical Statistics, Europe: 1750–​1993 (New York: Stockton Press, 1998, 4th edition), Table J2, 929–​35.

3 J. H.  Clapham, The Economic Development of France and Germany, 1815–​1914 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1955), 209–​10. 4 Mitchell, International Historical Statistics, Table A1, 3–​9; Mitchell, International Historical Statistics, The Americas:  1750–​ 1993 (New  York:  Stockton Press, 1998, 4th edition), Table A1, 6. 5 Mitchell, International Historical Statistics, Table B1, 146–​47, 149–​50, 154, 160. For additional data on the size and distribution of Germany’s agricultural labor force, see Frank B. Tipton Jr., Regional Variations in the Economic Development of Germany during the Nineteenth Century (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1976), 154, 156, 170–​202. There is little data available on the trend in money wages (or real wages). The data suggests that money wages in agriculture doubled from 1870 to 1920 (see below).

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Germany had more acreage under cultivation than other North Sea countries.6 While the smaller countries of the North Sea area could hardly be expected to produce what Germany did, two larger countries, France and the United Kingdom, theoretically could compete but lagged far behind. Germany’s agricultural productivity grew faster than any other North Sea country as well as Europe generally. Between 1850 and 1880, German annual average agricultural productivity grew 1.5 percent, with France and Belgium standing at 1.1 percent and the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Europe recording productivity rates that were half or less than half of Germany’s. Over the 1880–​1910 period, German agricultural productivity far outstripped all that of the North Sea nations (Belgium was the closest) and was nearly three times greater than the rest of Europe.7 Experiment stations played a prominent role in boosting Germany’s agricultural productivity. The stations, usually located near or within institutions of higher learning, benefited from the large increase in students attending universities, many of whom decided to seek careers directly in agricultural science or a closely related field.8 From 1870 to 1900, the number of students doubled and was more than two and half times larger still in 1920. While

Money wages in agriculture, selected countries, 1870–​1920 (1900 = 100)

1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920

Denmark

Germany

England and Wales

68 79 82 100 73a (1915) NA

80 92 91 100 121 NA

103 136a

1929 = 100 Source: B. R. Mitchell, International Historical Statistics, Europe: 1750–​1993 (New York: Stockton Press, 1998, 4th Edition), Table B5, 195–​97. a

6 Ibid., Tables C1, C2, C3, C7, 208, 213, 217–​18, 220–​21, 233–​34, 253–​54, 264, 268–​ 69, 274–​78, 311, 319–​21, 290–​91, 385. 7 C. Heywood, The Development of the French Economy, 1875–​1914 (London:  Macmillan Press, 1992), 47, Table 5.1. See also Clapham, The Economic Development, 177–​78, 203, 214; Gordon Wright, France in Modern Times (New York: W.W. Norton, 1995), 261–​62. 8 For a discussion of the differences in institutions of higher learning in the North Sea region, see George Grantham, “The Shifting Locus of Agricultural Innovation in Nineteenth-​ Century Europe: The Case of Agricultural Experiment Stations,” in Technique, Spirit, and Form in the Making of the Modern Economies: Essays in Honor of William N. Parker, edited by Gary Saxonhouse and Gavin Wright (New York: JAI Press, 1984), 205–​7.

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student growth rates increased in Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, no country except the United States added as many students as Germany (almost 100,000) between 1870 and 1920.9 Some North Sea nations invoked Germany’s agricultural dominance to promote various educational programs that would support and expand agriculture and science generally.10 For example, the German educational advantage was a cause of concern in England because of the nation’s poorly funded and underdeveloped educational infrastructure.11 In 1870 English cabinet ministers argued for more funds to support the promotion of scientific education and mentioned the problems the United Kingdom would face if it ignored the strides the Germans were making in technical and scientific areas.12 English agricultural organizations also built research laboratories that were similar to German facilities. In 1897, the Rothamsted Station received a donation to support research in plants and soils and built a “Pot Culture Station” that closely resembled laboratories carrying out corresponding experiments in Germany. Unfortunately, the English station yielded very little.13 The United Kingdom’s lackadaisical support for agricultural research and development meant that it made no strides in this area until after World War I.14 It is against this background that German experiment stations might be viewed as a barrier to potential North Sea efforts to expand their agricultural science programs. There was little incentive to support the establishment of a network of experiment stations or agricultural scientific efforts generally, including educational programs, as long as non-​German North Sea countries 9 Mitchell, International Historical Statistics, Table I2, 751, 894–​98. 10 Harry W. Paul, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: The French Scientist’s Image of German Science, 1840–​ 1919 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1972). 11 John Joseph Beer, The Emergence of the German Dye Industry (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1959), 15–​16, 111. In addition, by the middle years of the period North Sea nations were sending some of their best students to Germany for advanced training in institutions of higher learning. 12 George Haines IV, “German Influence upon Scientific Instruction in England, 1867–​ 1887,” Victorian Studies 1, no.  3 (1958):  218, 236; see also Mark R.  Finlay, “Science, Practice and Politics:  German Agricultural Experiment Stations in the Nineteenth Century,” PhD diss., Iowa State University, 1990, 341–​46. 13 Sir E.  John Russell, A History of Agricultural Science in Great Britain, 1620–​ 1954 (London: George Allen and Unwind, 1966), 174. The English followed the German lead in chemical applications in agriculture as well (195–​96). See also Russell, “Rothamsted and Its Experiment Station,” Agricultural History 16 (1942): 161–​83. 14 Nicholas Goodard, Harvests of Change: The Royal Agricultural Society of England, 1838–​1988 (London: Quiller Press, 1988), 167; E. A. Attwood, “The Origins of State Support for British Agriculture,” in The Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies, edited by B. R. Williams (Manchester, 1963), 143; Russell, History of Agricultural Science, chapter IX.

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could send their scientists aboard for training and borrow the best of agricultural science and farm techniques from the Germans and Americans. The problem with such a strategy was that the Germans and Americans were innovating in agricultural scientific areas that might or might not be useful to North Sea nations because of differing soil, climate, and crop conditions. Even in the very late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when Germany was beginning to lose its international competitive edge and markets to the United States and ceased to be regarded as the world’s leader in agricultural science, North Sea nations still did not react forcefully and fund agricultural science projects that could have improved their competitive prospects with not only the Germans but also the Americans. What most North Sea nations appeared to be unaware of was that even though American agricultural science was achieving some startling results, most U.S.  experiment stations did not emphasize indoor laboratory experiments to boost agricultural productivity. The German experiment stations were unusual not only because of collaboration among agricultural associations, government, and business, but as the United States Experiment Station Record suggested in an editorial, because of “the greater specialization of work and the relatively larger proportion of abstract research in the German stations. The individual stations confine themselves to fewer subjects of investigation and study them more deeply. Relatively more attention is given to work in the laboratory, the green house, and the stable, and less to that of the farm, garden and orchard.”15 Until he left office in 1915, Alfred True repeatedly mentioned the German emphasis on indoor laboratory experiments—​what he called original research—​as the most important weakness of American experiment stations. As True understood, if you did not engage in and support original research projects, organizational learning could not or was unlikely to take place. Responding to immediate problems might produce some current results but such a strategy did not by itself generate long-​term improvements in agricultural practices. To encourage original research as well as strengthen the organizational learning process at American experiment stations, Alfred True and the secretary of agriculture, James Wilson, got Congress to pass the Adams Act in 1906. As a result, American agricultural science received another infusion of funds that focused directly on science-​based research and designated $5,000 per year per state of federal subsidies to aid investigations at state experiment stations. As a result, states across the land appropriated more funds for experiment stations to support original research. The act not only allocated 15 ESR 1, 4 (March 1890): 177; Grantham, “Shifting Locus of Agricultural Innovation,” 201.

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special funds for original research projects that were nontransferable but also included specific monitoring mechanisms that the Office of Experiment Stations (OES) could use to assure the consistency, reliability, and originality of the experiments carried out. One German commentator who had visited America in the late nineteenth century noted that “American agricultural science lagged behind Germany’s in its sophistication.”16 This so-​called sophistication played a critical role in the organizational learning process because the first stage of learning took place in the laboratory and then over time was transformed, refined, or modified (during the postbasic development research process) as more application (development)-​oriented research was carried out. As a result, many original research projects eventually yielded practical applications to improve cultivation practices and boost productivity. By focusing on experiments in laboratories, greenhouses, and stables, German experiment stations were seeking more generalizable as well as specific applications that could be developed further and be utilized in fields, gardens, and orchards. While Germany in the early years of the twentieth century was falling behind American inroads in agricultural science, it still stood far above its North Sea competitors. Even as its comparative advantage waned, German experiment stations still carried out original agricultural research to boost productivity as well as expand efforts to be globally competitive. By lagging behind, non-​German North Sea countries were hard-​pressed to solve indigenous problems for which the Germans or Americans had very little or no concern. Simply put, German experiment stations were indirectly an obstacle to the potential expansion of experiment stations across the region as well as an impediment to ongoing scientific work. While it is hard to estimate the impact this lag had on national prosperity in non-​German North Sea nations, undoubtedly the lack of scientific progress in agriculture reduced the potential growth rate of agricultural productivity, made it unlikely that the nations could reduce (whether large or small) their reliance on food imports, and potentially harmed their efforts to expand agricultural exports.

16 Finlay, “Science, Practice and Politics,” 375–​79.

7

Chapter 6 THE MANAGERIAL REVOLUTION AND THE DEVELOPMENTAL STATE: THE CASE OF U.S. AGRICULTURE  The dominant view among Americans is that government intervention into the operation of the economy can only result in inferior economic performance. Yet this view ignores the success the developmental state has had in places such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.1 American academics and policy makers who recognize the accomplishments of the developmental state abroad still retain strong doubts about the applicability of such governmental intervention to the United States. However appropriate the developmental state may be for the late-​developing nations, the skeptics argue, it is not suited to a nation such as the United States, which became highly industrialized a century ago on the basis of individualism and laissez-​faire. Such mistrust of the possibilities for an American developmental state reflects a misunderstanding of American economic history. Nowhere is the neglect of the historical record of the role of the government more evident than in the case of U.S. agriculture. Here was a sector of the economy that in 1890 represented 43 percent of the American labor force working on over four-​and-​a-​half million farms.2 In the aggregate, labor productivity in agriculture was somewhat higher than labor productivity in manufacturing in the 1890s. But low prices for agricultural commodities meant that the income generated from the products (including nonmarketed output) of these farms accounted for only 17.1 percent of national income.3 The importance of agriculture to the national economy derived not only from the large numbers 1 Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–​1975 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982); Alice Amsden, Asia’s Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Robert Wade, Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). 2 U.S. Bureau of the Census (1961), 72, 278. 3 Ibid., 140.

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of people who were supported (even if barely) by it but also from the preponderance of agricultural products among U.S.  exports. In 1890, agricultural products accounted for almost 75  percent of total U.S.  exports, with cotton and grain products making up close to 50 percent of the agricultural export total.4 Especially in the context of a shrinking frontier of unutilized land, the discovery of new sources of productivity growth became critical to agriculture’s ability to contribute to the economic development of the nation. Acting as an individual enterprise, the family farmer had neither the financial resources nor the scientific knowledge to develop new technologies that could dramatically improve productivity. The agricultural machinery and implements sector—​which included such giants as McCormick (soon to form the core of International Harvester) and John Deere—​developed labor-​saving mechanical technologies that increased the amount of land that could be tilled, planted, and harvested by a given number of labor-​hours. But, in addition, continued productivity growth in agriculture required scientific advances that could be embodied in the land and the products of the land to increase yields per acre. To secure productivity gains from machines and scientific advances, farmers had to learn how to properly utilize these new technologies. In the transfer of knowledge to the farm, government, through the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the state experiment stations, played the central role. The transfer of relevant knowledge also flowed from the farmer to the government agencies. Improvements in seeds, fertilizers, disease control, as well as new product development required that the scientific community, largely based in the USDA, land grant-​colleges, and state experiment stations, receive information back from farmers concerning their experiences under widely varying climatic and geological conditions. Finally, farmers had to have the financial resources to purchase these inputs. Yet, prior to the 1930s, volatile agricultural prices—​ the consequence of unregulated competition in the sale of undifferentiated commodities—​meant that farmers rarely could rely on their own financial resources to invest in new technologies. Even when loans were available, many farmers were reluctant to borrow for fear of losing their land. Indeed, some farmers who did borrow to make significant capital investments ended up in bankruptcy and had their land foreclosed.5 The development of new agricultural products and processes, the diffusion of these new technologies to the farmers, and the provision of financial 4 U.S. Department of Agriculture (1891). 5 Sally Clarke, “ ‘Innovation’ in U.S. Agriculture:  A Role for New Deal Regulation,” Business and Economic History 21 (1992): 46–​55.

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incentives that could induce farmers to invest in the productivity-​enhancing inputs had to be undertaken by some entities other than the farmers themselves. To some extent, private-​sector businesses assumed these roles, especially in the development and diffusion of farm implements and machinery. The fact is, however, that in the economic development of U.S. agriculture, governments at the federal, state, and county levels became deeply involved in developing productive resources for agriculture and ensuring their effective utilization. As a result, the U.S. government was an important actor in making the social commitment to organizational learning in agriculture. Over the long run, moreover, the activities of the private and public sectors became inextricably linked in the development of U.S. agriculture. An understanding of the roles of the government in the development of U.S. agriculture makes it difficult to argue that a successful developmental state is foreign to the experience of the United States. But the case of U.S. agriculture has even more profound implications for understanding the sources of successful economic development in the United States. The contribution of federal, state, and local governments in the United States to agricultural productivity represents one of the most successful examples in modern economic history of the beneficial impact of the developmental state on a single economic sector. A  complete understanding of the role of the government in the development of U.S.  agriculture substantially undermines the “myth of the market economy.”6 The rediscovery of the history of the role of the government in American economic development should compel a rethinking of how the United States should, and can, respond to ever-​intensifying global competition. The key to rethinking the role of the government in American economic history is an understanding of the “managerial revolution” that occurred in the United States in roughly the half century from the 1880s to the 1930s. In particular, managerial revolution occurred not only in manufacturing, as Alfred Chandler and others have amply documented, but also in agriculture.7 In manufacturing, the managerial revolution occurred primarily (although not entirely) within private-​sector enterprises that came to dominate their industries. In agriculture, the managerial revolution occurred primarily (although not entirely) within public-​sector organizations that defined the strategies and 6 William Lazonick, Business Organization and the Myth of the Market Economy (New  York: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 7 Alfred D.  Chandler Jr., The Visible Hand:  The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Boston, MA:  Harvard University Press, 1977)  and Chandler, Scale and Scope:  The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism (Boston, MA:  Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1990).

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structures of the developmental state. Simply put, the developmental state was central to technological change and productivity growth in U.S. agriculture from the late nineteenth century, and the managerial revolution within the public sector was the essence of the developmental state. To begin to comprehend the role of the developmental state in U.S. agriculture, one must understand what made the managerial revolution such a powerful engine of economic development. As Joseph Schumpeter argued, economic development requires innovation—​the generation of higher-​quality products at lower-​unit costs than those goods and services that had previously been available.8 Innovation that is economically successful requires the development of new technology and its diffusion to producers who can generate high-​quality products at low unit costs. The development of new technology requires that a specialized division of labor be coordinated to generate new knowledge that can be embodied in new productive inputs. The diffusion of new technology requires that the users of these productive inputs have both the incentive to invest in the new technology and the ability—​namely, knowledge that is complementary to the utilization of machines and scientific advances—​to generate high-​quality products at low unit costs. The managerial revolution occurred to plan and coordinate the development and diffusion of those technologies that required large-​scale investments in plant and equipment and sustained access to personnel with highly specialized complementary knowledge. In many manufacturing industries such as automobiles, consumer electronics, electrical machinery, and chemicals (among others), the technological possibilities for product differentiation and high throughput permitted individual business organizations that pursued innovative investment strategies to gain distinct competitive advantages in their industries. Those innovative enterprises that used the returns from innovation (in the form of retained earnings) to pursue a strategy of continuous innovation were often able to gain sustained competitive advantage and dominate their industries. This innovative investment strategy typically entailed not only technological innovation in products and processes but also organizational innovation in planning and coordinating complex specialized divisions of labor. Within major enterprises, these divisions of labor could include tens of thousands of highly trained individuals whose specialist activities often extended from the production of capital inputs to the sale of the final products. The managerial revolution enabled these manufacturing enterprises to develop their own technologies and diffuse them to their own production facilities around the nation and eventually around the world.

8 Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York, 1942).

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Table 6.1  Total farms and acreage, United States, 1890–​1990 Year

1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990

Number of farms

Land in farms

(thousands)

(1,000 acres)

4,009 4,565 5,740 6,366 6,454 6,295 6,102 5,388 3,962 2,954 2,440 2,143

536,082 623,219 841,202 881,431 958,677 990,112 1,065,114 1,161,420 1,176,946 1,102,769 1,039,000 988,000

Sources: U.S. Bureau of the Census (1976), 457; U.S. Bureau of the Census (1991), 644.

In agriculture, the technological limitations on product differentiation and throughput meant that it was very difficult for any individual business enterprise to gain a sustained competitive advantage. These limitations, along with the federal government policies of land distribution during the nineteenth century, resulted in the widespread persistence of the family farm in the twentieth century. As Table 6.1 shows, the number of farms in the United States reached 6.4 million in 1920. Table 6.1 also shows that even as the number of farms in the United States dropped by two-​thirds between 1920 and 1990, there was little growth in the numbers of acres in farms. Yet over this period, agricultural productivity per unit of input increased over two-​and-​a-​half times, while from 1920 to 1986 agricultural productivity per labor-​hour increased over 15 times (see Table 6.2).9 How did this remarkable productivity growth occur? It is noteworthy that even when private-​sector enterprises manufactured and marketed the productive inputs, the government did much of the basic research required to improve the productivity of the inputs and the training required to enable farmers to use these inputs more effectively. To develop and diffuse these yield-​increasing technologies required the building up of extensive links between, on the one hand, state experiment stations and land-​grant colleges and, on the other hand, millions of farmers.

9 U.S. Bureau of the Census (1976), 498–​99; U.S. Bureau of the Census (1992), 657.

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Table 6.2  Farm output per labor-​hour, 1910–​86 Year

Output per labor-​hour

1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1986

14 16 17 21 35 67 113 191 254

Sources: U.S. Department of Agriculture (1954), 458; U.S. Department of Agriculture (1972), 540; U.S. Bureau of the Census (1974), 614; U.S. Bureau of the Census (1981), 709; U.S. Bureau of the Census (1989), 642.

The key actor in linking the research process with the production process was the county agent, a government employee who was an integral member of local farm communities. In 1924, 10 years after the passage of the Smith–​ Lever Act, which established a nationwide cooperative extension service, there were 2,251 county agents in the United States, spread out over about three-​ quarters of the agricultural counties in the nation.10 The cooperative extension service made the results of research at the USDA, experiment stations, and land-​grant colleges and universities available and accessible to farmers. Supported by federal, state, and local funds (see Table 6.3), the main task of the county agents was to inform farmers about new agricultural practices.11 Through cooperative extension services, the county agent took new methods of farming from the agricultural experiment stations and the USDA to groups of farmers in particular localities. The county agent also took back to the experiment stations information on the varying performance of new technologies under differing geological and climatic conditions as well as in combination with various other farming practices. This information then permitted the experiment station to improve the technologies for use under different conditions.

10 Grant McConnell, The Decline of Agrarian Democracy (New York: Atheneum, 1969), 46; see also C. B. Smith, Cooperative Extension Work, 1924, with Ten-​Year Review (Washington, DC, 1926), 4–​5. 11 Wayne D.  Rasmussen, Taking the University to the People:  Seventy-​Five Years of Cooperative Extension (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1989).

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Table 6.3  Cooperative extension funds, by source, 1915–​88

1915 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1988

Total (000 $)

Federal (%)

State (%)

County (%)

Private (%)

3,597 14,685 19,250 23,804 20,042 32,764 37,836 73,394 100,617 140,071 188,884 290,688 448,334 682,698 996,629 1,144,966

41 40 36 37 45 57 50 44 39 38 38 39 40 34 33 30

29 36 37 29 25 20 24 32 36 38 39 41 41 45 46 48

22 20 20 30 26 20 23 21 22 23 21 18 18 19 18 18

8 4 7 4 4 3 3 3 3 1 2 2 2 2 3 4

Source: Rasmussen (1989), 252.

The role of the county agents was, however, not only technological. They played central roles in organizing farmers on the local level for purposes of educating them collectively and sharing information among themselves. The county agents were typically the key figures in organizing local farm bureaus—​organizations that when amalgamated into the American Farm Bureau Federation quickly became the most potent advocates of the interests of commercial farmers on the national level.12 From the U.S.  secretary of agriculture down through the state experiment stations to the army of county agents, an elaborate managerial organization evolved in the American agricultural sector between the late 1880s and the 1920s. Not by coincidence, it was during this very same period that the managerial revolution in manufacturing occurred. These decades witnessed a science-​based industrial revolution in which the building of complex organizations was critical to the development and utilization of scientific knowledge. These decades also saw a transformation in the American system 12 Orville Mertin Kile, The Farm Bureau through Three Decades (Baltimore, MD:  Waverly Press, 1948), Pt. I; McConnell, Decline of Agrarian Democracy, ­ chapter  5; Robert P. Howard, James R. Howard and the Farm Bureau (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1983), ­chapter 10.

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of higher education that developed highly educated personnel who were ready and willing to pursue careers in the complex science-​based organizations. The potential for innovation and productivity growth through the application of science to industrial pursuits was enormous in agriculture as well as manufacturing. In both agriculture and manufacturing, a managerial revolution occurred. Economic development requires committed finance that enables those who make direct investments in productive assets to develop the productive capabilities of these assets until such a time as they yield returns. Committed finance generally takes the form of retained earnings. For many farmers who did not make significant investments in farm equipment, such ongoing “financial” commitment was literally the seed corn that they planted. But in a business world of purchased inputs and sold outputs, the basic source of financial commitment for small family farms as well as giant corporations was (and remains) those revenues that are left over after workers, suppliers, landlords, owners, creditors, and governments have taken their shares. With the prospects of a steady stream of this “seed corn,” the business enterprise can, if it so desires, secure additional finance through borrowing. In the manufacturing enterprises that Chandler describes, retained earnings formed the basis for investments in not only plant and equipment but also research and development.13 In the agricultural sector, funding for research and development came from federal and state governments. In 1887, the Hatch Act allocated $15,000 per year to every state for the purposes of setting up and operating an agricultural experiment station. After the passage of the Hatch Act, the individual states took over more of the funding of the experiment stations, with the states’ proportionate contributions rising steadily from 24 percent in 1896 to 36 percent in 1905.14 The passage of the Adams Act in 1906 bolstered the national movement to advance agricultural science within the state experiment station system. This act established a separate fund (initially $5,000 per year per state) of federal subsidies to support science-​based research projects at experiment stations. The USDA and the Office of Experiment Stations (OES) also encouraged state governments to appropriate more funds to supplement federal aid to agriculture for station activities. Some states had previously made substantial contributions to stations, while others had provided no funds or had parsimonious records of funding station work. After the Adams Act, state appropriation 13 Chandler, The Visible Hand; Jennifer J. S. Brooks, “Debt and Equity in the American Corporate Financial Structure, 1900–​1991,” photocopy (1992). 14 Alfred Charles True, A History of Agricultural Experimentation and Research in the United States, 1607–​1925, reprint (Washington, DC: GPO, 1937).

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expanded, with more states increasing their contributions to station work.15 In 1906, when the act was passed, nonfederal funding of experiment stations represented 41  percent of total station revenues. From 1912 until 1955, nonfederal funding of experiment stations represented 41  percent of total station revenues. From 1912 until 1955, nonfederal funds amounted to anywhere from 60 to 80 percent of the total budgets of state stations.16 The Smith–​Lever Act increased the financial commitment of the federal government to agricultural research. The act authorized specific federal appropriations, with dollar-​for-​dollar state matching funds over an initial $10,000 per year per state, for cooperative agriculture and extension work. The act significantly enhanced the capacity of the experiment stations to diffuse knowledge to farmers. The passage of the Purnell Act in 1925 further rewarded the USDA’s efforts to increase federal appropriations for scientific research. The act authorized additional funds—​$20,000 per station in 1926, $60,000 by 1930—​for research purposes (including some economic and sociological studies). The Bankhead–​Jones Act of 1936, similar to the Adams Act and Purnell Act, provided for project oversight by the OES.17 The act also stipulated that states had to provide matching funds, similar to the Smith–​Lever Act. The USDA only distributed 60 percent of the appropriation. It allocated the rest to regional laboratories that were often located near land-​grant colleges and stations. The Bankhead–​Jones Act was amended in 1946 with the passage of the Agricultural Research and Marketing Act, which increased funding for basic research as well as marketing and distribution of agricultural products. Not all land-​grant colleges benefited equally from the public funding of agricultural experimentation. The “colleges of 1890”—​the separate black colleges set up under the Morrill Land-​Grant College Act of 1890—​got virtually none of the research funds. For example, in 1971, the “colleges of 1890” received just one-​tenth of 1 percent of all the funds distributed to the land-​ grant colleges by the Cooperative State Research Service.18 As the potential user of the new technologies, the family farm also needed finance to enable it to invest in new technologies. Volatile prices and mortgages of short duration, however, made it difficult, and often impudent, for the farmer to invest in the new technologies. Sally Clarke shows convincingly that New Deal legislation that remained in force after the 1930s vastly improved 15 Ibid., 138, 212. 16 Wallace E. Huffman and Robert E. Evenson, Science for Agriculture: A Long-​Run Perspective, photocopy (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1991), 4–​43. 17 ESR 78 (February 1938): 146. 18 James Hightower, Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times (Cambridge: Schenkman, 1978), 12.

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the prospects for financing high fixed-​cost farm investments without setting the stage for high levels of farm foreclosures because of insufficient returns to these investments.19 The pre-​Depression cumulation of organizational capabilities that were the essence of the managerial revolution in agriculture was critical for securing the passage and implementation of the New Deal legislation. Central to these organizational capabilities were the USDA and its OES, the land-​grant colleges, the state experiment stations, and the cooperative extension service. The Morrill Land-​Grant College Act of 1862, which created a nationwide system of publicly funded state colleges for agriculture and mechanical arts, was not meant to provide critical institutional foundations for the managerial revolution. Rather, when it passed, the act was aimed at upgrading the social standing of the farmer and the artisan by providing these “industrial classes” with institutions of higher education that were on par with existing elite universities like Harvard and Yale. Unfortunately for this Jeffersonian vision, farmers and artisans found little use for the land-​ grant colleges during the first quarter century of their existence, in part because of the underdevelopment of the secondary education system that was supposed to supply the colleges with students, and in part because of the irrelevance of a four-​year college degree for Americans who intended to earn their livelihoods as farmers and artisans. It was only in the 1880s, with agricultural exports accounting for some three-​quarters of all U.S. exports and with the limits to the American frontier rapidly being reached, that the federal government sought to make the land-​grant colleges centers of agricultural research. As already indicated, the critical legislation was the Hatch Act of 1887, for it marked the beginning of governmental actions to contribute to agricultural productivity. The USDA supported the establishment of an experiment station system to aid farmers nationwide, develop links with agricultural scientists across states, and raise funding for agricultural research. Each state in the Union, as a recipient of Hatch Act funds, had at least one central experiment station. In 1888 the secretary of agriculture established the OES as the administrative division of the USDA responsible for coordinating and monitoring the use and allocation of funds under the Hatch Act (see Table 6.4). Advocates of an experiment station system noted the advances that German agriculture had achieved because of sustained government support for agricultural research. Americans admired three characteristics of the German system: highly trained teachers and scientists, a commitment to high-​caliber

19 Clarke, “ ‘Innovation’ in U.S. Agriculture.”

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Table 6.4  Federal agricultural research organizations, 1862–​1953 Chemical and biological researchdivisions USDA (1862) Chemistry (1862) Entomology (1863) Botany (1868) Veterinary (1883) Veterinary and Animal Industry (1884)

Statistics and economics bureaus/​offices

Statistics (1863, 1903)

OES (1888) Vegetable, Physiology, and Pathology (1890, 1895) Agricultural Soils (1894) Agroscopy (1895) Bureaus Soils (1901) Plant Industry (1904) Entomology (1904)

Crop Estimates (1914) Markets (1917) Farm Management and Farm Economics (1919) Markets and Crop Estimates (1921) Agricultural Economics (1922)

Home Economics (1923) Dairy Industry (1924) Chemistry and Soils (1927) Entomology and Plant Quarantine (1934) Plant Industry and Soils (1938) Foreign Agricultural Service (1938) Agricultural Chemistry and Engineering (1938) Human Nutrition and Home Economics (1943) Agricultural and Industrial Chemistry (1943) Plant Industry, Soil, and Agricultural Engineering Production and Marketing (1943) Administration (1945) ARS (1953)

Agricultural Marketing Service (1953) Sources: Huffman and Evenson, Science for Agriculture (1991), ­chapter 2, 47–​48; Baker et al., Century of Service:  The First Hundred Years of the United States Department of Agriculture (1963); Baker and Rasmussen, The Department of Agriculture (1972).

scientific investigations, and sufficient time and freedom to carry out research projects.20

20 Norwood A. Kerr, The Legacy: A Centennial History of the State Agricultural Experiment Stations (Columbia: Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station, 1987), 2–​3.

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One section of the Hatch Act specified that American experiment stations should make an effort “to conduct original researches or verify experiments […] bearing directly on the agricultural industry of the United States.”21 USDA and experiment station proponents of original research rejected the idea that stations should function mainly as bureaus of information. Instead, they thought that the future of American agriculture depended on successful experimentation in the lab or field leading to scientific discoveries that were beneficial to the development of the industry. The innovations could then be disseminated to farmers through farmers’ institutes and agricultural schools at the land-​grant colleges. The early directors of the OES attempted to define the objectives of research work at the stations. Because the OES had oversight responsibilities for the federal grants provided to states, it acted as a central clearinghouse for keeping track of the kinds of research projects that stations initiated as well as avoiding excessive duplication of experiments. OES staff, particularly the director, presented OES policy recommendations regarding agricultural research practices in, among other places, two critical forums:  editorial exhortations and articles in the Experiment Station Record (ESR), and professional meetings of the USDA/​OES staff with scientists from land-​grant colleges and experiment stations. Many station directors faced tremendous pressure from statewide groups to spend Hatch funds on nonresearch work. Some land-​ grant college administrators wanted station scientists to do more teaching rather than research. Some farmers who were skeptical about the merits of agricultural science wanted the stations to provide quick answers to isolated problems. Some political leaders who failed to appreciate the long-​term benefits to their constituents of advances in agricultural science demanded that stations orient their work to solving immediate farm crises. Despite these conflicting pressures on the allocation of experiment station time and effort, by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century many stations had begun to focus their activities on original agricultural investigations that required fundamental research.22 As stated by a Montana experiment station scientist in 1905, these investigations were defined as pure science or fundamental research when “scientific research is carried on for the acquisition of truth only and the mere

21 Alan I. Marcus, Agricultural Science and the Quest for Legitimacy (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1985). 22 S. W.  Fletcher, “The Major Research Achievements Made Possible through Grants under the Hatch Act,” Proceedings, Associated Land Grant Colleges & Universities 51 (1937).

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sake of extending the boundaries of knowledge.”23 Under the joint leadership of James Wilson, secretary of agriculture from 1897 to 1913, and Alfred True, director of the OES from 1893 to 1915, the value of using public funds to extend basic scientific knowledge became firmly imbedded as the prime mission of the government. Project review procedures contained in the Adams Act allowed the OES to exercise more control over expenditures and projects than was possible under the Hatch Act. The OES maintained that its review process enabled it to exercise effective influence over station work. The review process was critical, the OES argued, because expenditures under the Hatch Act were too often used for nonresearch work, such as enforcement of agricultural regulations, correspondence, and administrative tasks. The OES had repeatedly suggested that non-​Hatch funds (i.e., state appropriations) be used to cover nonresearch expenditures.24 To avoid the confusion that had emerged under the Hatch Act regarding the uses of federal funds, Secretary Wilson, a vociferous proponent of agricultural science, sent instructions to the experiment stations on March 20, 1906, that explained that the Adams Act prohibited the use of federal funds for nonresearch work. He specifically indicated that “expenses for administration, care of buildings and grounds, insurance, office furniture and fittings, general maintenance of the station and animals, verification and demonstration experiments, compilations, farmers’ institute work, traveling, except as is immediately connected with original researches in progress […] and other general expenses for the maintenance of the experiment stations, are not be charged to this fund.”25 This exercise of firm control over the use of federal funds forced the states to secure other funding to support the nonresearch expenditures of their experiment stations. The evolution of the USDA–​OES control over this far-​flung system of research says much about the public-​sector managerial revolution that was taking place in the decades spanning the turn of the century. In 1895 the secretary of agriculture threatened to terminate appropriations for the experiment stations unless the stations agreed to a federal fiscal review of their expenditures. The stations, represented by the American Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations (AAACES), agreed to submit their expenditures to the OES. In the same year Alfred True, director of the OES, visited 35 stations to review their work. True was concerned about the 23 Quoted in Edward D. Eddy, Colleges for Our Land and Time (New York: Harper, 1957), 124; see also ESR 18 (January 1907): 413. 24 H. C. Knoblauch, et al., State Agricultural Experiment Stations: A History of Research Policy and Procedure (Washington, DC: GPO, 1962), 112. 25 Kerr, The Legacy, 44; OES (1906), 67–​68.

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progress of not only particular projects but also “entire research programs.” In 1899, upon request of the OES, the attorney general of the United States ruled that Hatch funds could not be used for academic instruction. Similarly, in that year, James Wilson, the secretary of agriculture, told USDA scientists to stop making informal agreements with selected station scientists for joint cooperative research. Instead the secretary wanted all approved proposals for cooperative work to be monitored and implemented by the OES.26 These directives illustrate the USDA’s resolve to manage the station’s work by implementing the policies adopted by the OES—​policies that were formulated in consultation with the secretary of the USDA. The Adams Act stipulated advance reviews of station work, thus allowing the OES to make recommendations about the scope and nature of project outlines before investigations began. The OES also had legislative power to recommend curtailment of Adams funding for a station that did not abide by the OES’s standards for scientific investigations; and during the first three decades of this century several stations did have their funding cut off temporarily.27 As a result, the review process, known as the “project system,” gave the OES a powerful managerial mechanism to oversee scientific work under the Adams Act. In subsequent years all reviews occurred under this system irrespective of source of funding. In sum, according to Edward Eddy, with the Adams Act “for the first time in Land-​Grant College history a Federal Department had been given direct authority over state units.”28 The OES, in its advisory capacity, recognized that station autonomy over research projects remained a politically explosive issue, one in which station directors had to contend with various constituencies while also conforming to scientific standards set by the OES for funding under the Adams Act. The act enabled the USDA, through an administrative unit, the OES, to formally monitor federal subsidies for research work. As a result, the USDA had a mechanism to strengthen scientists’ commitment to basic research within an organizational structure that would, they believed, enhance future opportunities for fundamental discoveries leading to innovations. Alfred True sent a memorandum to station directors on April 30, 1906, describing in minute detail how a project outline should be submitted to his office. He included a sample project outline that explicitly specified the scope and character of the study to be carried out, and a budget that broke down estimated expenses by, among other items, employee function (e.g., salary of

26 Kerr, The Legacy,  41–​44. 27 Ibid., 58–​61,  66–​68. 28 Eddy, Our Land and Time, 125.

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expert in charge, salary of analyst).29 To handle the burgeoning number of projects that had to be examined, True’s staff at OES grew rapidly from 38 in 1897 to over 200 in 1912.30 In the OES’s annual report to Congress of Adams’s work completed in 1907, True remarked that “the system […] of having projects outlined by the stations and passed upon by the Office in advance of beginning work […] has worked very satisfactorily.”31 In practice, under this project approach, experimentation on a project could not begin without meeting what came to be known as the “True Standard.” How original did a project have to be to conform to this standard? Although True was not a scientist, he understood the complexities that pure agricultural science research projects entailed. In his evaluations of projects, he did not require complete originality. Instead he wanted some aspect of the work to involve science-​ based principles. Specifically, True was “more intent on measuring station projects for their scientific caliber than for their academic uniqueness, [and he] relied on the certainty that a scientific investigation, planned and conducted in conformity with the project system, would achieve prior to its termination a significant penetration in depth.” True believed that “ ‘originality’ in accomplishment, gained by an assault against the unknown, would unfailingly emerge.”32 An AAACES commission report in 1908 emphasized a mission-​directed approach to promote agricultural research in the United States. The five-​ person commission (which included, in addition to two prominent agricultural researchers and a representative of the USDA, Carroll D. Wright and David Starr Jordan) had been set up in 1906 to evaluate how successfully federally funded agricultural research had been carried out. They also made recommendations on the nature and types of research on which experiment stations and the USDA should concentrate their efforts. The report spelled out the functional relationship between the USDA and experiment stations, thus reinforcing the already evident central role that the USDA played as manager of the nation’s agricultural research agenda. In particular the report noted: There should be a clearer definition of the relative fields of work of the United States Department of Agriculture and the experiment stations. The dominance of the stations within their respective fields should be preserved and their growth fostered, as agencies for the investigation of local questions and of the more individual scientific problems. The 29 Annual Report (1906), 68–​70. 30 Kerr, The Legacy, 45. 31 Quoted in Knoblauch et al., State Agricultural Experiment Stations, 164. 32 Ibid., 164–​65.

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Federal agency, on the other hand, should cultivate the almost limitless field offered by questions having national or interstate relations, and by those broad scientific problems requiring heavy expenditures, elaborate equipment, long continued study, and the correlation of the results of many investigators, which efforts are usually beyond the means of an individual station. On many questions the harmonious cooperation of the two agencies is essential to the highest efficiency of effort […] Research work, both national and state, should be provided for by separate, lump-​sum appropriations, to be distributed according to the discretion of the responsible executive head of each agency […] An advisory board is suggested consisting of members appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture and by the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, respectively, which shall confer with the Secretary of Agriculture regarding the mutual interests of the Department and the Stations and shall consider the promotion of agricultural investigation in general.33 Prior to the passage of the Adams Act, the AAACES recognized that it needed a new committee to coordinate “operational harmony” with other administrative units.34 The Experiment Station Committee on Organization and Policy (ESCOP) included representatives from other administrative units engaged in agricultural research, in particular the USDA. Within the USDA’s organizational hierarchy, the ESCOP played a critical role in resolving administrative disputes among different units while preserving organizational harmony and cohesion. By the first decade of the twentieth century, the USDA had in place a managerial organization to enhance the nation’s capability to promote agricultural science. Greater appropriations to the USDA during the 16  years (1897–​1913) in which Secretary Wilson headed the department meant that the USDA could expand its research programs. In essence, Wilson’s “sixteen years in the Cabinet […] established a record for unbroken service that has never been equaled. His interest in scientific work made him a frequent visitor in the Department laboratories. He knew all the scientists and what they were doing.”35 Secretary Wilson’s emphasis on strengthening the department, moreover, resulted in larger USDA appropriations, jumping from about $3 million in 1897 to close to $25  million in 1913. During Wilson’s term, the USDA hired hundreds of scientists, developed new lines of inquiry, especially in the 33 Ibid., 125. 34 Ibid., 107. 35 Ernest G. Moore, The Agriculture Research Service (New York: Praeger, 1967), 16.

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fields of entomology and animal and dairy husbandry, purchased equipment, and modernized facilities. It also expanded research and regulatory work on plants, souls, and nutrition.36 In the years after the Adams Act, federal–​state relations regarding agricultural research proceeded relatively smoothly. ESCOP played a mediating role in resolving those jurisdictional or administrative disputes that did arise. Federal–​state relations were characterized by collusion, compromise, and cooperation, with the USDA encouraging agreements among competing research units so as to maintain public support for agriculture.37 Over the years many joint committees were set up to coordinate policies among AAACES, the OES, and the USDA. An important force for the organizational integration of the nationwide system of agricultural research was the movement of agricultural scientists over the course of their careers between the public and private sectors and between state and federal public institutions. In earlier years some station scientists (so-​ called research entrepreneurs) cultivated relationships with various client groups in order to ensure political support for their work.38 These clients included private agricultural firms and commercial farmers who needed research done in a specific area related to monoculture agriculture. Scientists at the USDA also cultivated similar relationships. In Vernon Ruttan’s words, “The major research bureaus of the USDA were initially established in a manner to take full advantage of the link between the bureau’s mission and its clientele interests both within and outside of the Congress.”39 Station scientists did change their affiliations, with many department heads departing for positions with the USDA, land-​grant colleges, or private firms. One glimpse of the problem is captured in a study of the 1914–​19 period that found that stations experienced an 80 percent turnover rate, with some leading scientists leaving the station system. In particular, the OES reported that “370 department heads and leaders of special lines [departed] […] Of 36 Kerr, The Legacy, 44–​45; Gladys L. Baker et al., Century of Service: The First Hundred Years of the United States Department of Agriculture (Washington, DC:  Centennial Committee, USDA, 1963), 42–​51; Moore, The Agriculture Research Service, 16. 37 Gladys L.  Baker and Wayne Rasmussen, The Department of Agriculture (New  York: Praeger, 1972). 38 Charles Rosenberg, “Science, Technology, and Economic Growth:  The Case of the Agricultural Experiment Station Scientist, 1875–​1914,” Agricultural History 44 (January 1971); David B. Danbom, ‘Our Purpose Is to Serve’: The First Century of the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station (Fargo:  North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies, 1988),  21–​22. 39 Vernon W. Ruttan, “Bureaucratic Productivity: The Case of Agricultural Research,” Public Choice 35 (1980): 530.

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this expert class, upward of 150 went into industrial or commercial lines, […] 50 into extension work, [and] an equal number to the National and State departments of agriculture.”40 High turnover rates could delay or slow ongoing station projects. But they also provided the USDA and private agricultural firms with a readily available pool of trained scientists.41 Those scientists who moved back and forth between government and industry established key public-​private links that contributed to the improvement of agricultural technologies. As the main coordinating force, the USDA maintained its mission of directing the various centers of basic agricultural research. Between the Smith–​Lever Act of 1914 and the Purnell Act of 1925, the USDA reorganized its departments to streamline operations (see Table  6.4). New departments were established to respond to changing economic conditions, particularly falling prices caused by overproduction. One new department, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, carried out studies to help farmers market and distribute farm products. The OES maintained its historical position as a separate unit within the USDA. Its chief of operations also assumed the title of assistant director of the Office of Scientific Work, reporting directly to the USDA’s director of Scientific Work.42 OES’s project system was firmly in place in the 1920s, so that few proposals were turned down, though many were substantially revised. The review process involved an examination of the project by an OES scientist in a particular specialization (e.g., field crops) and consultation with scientists within the USDA. The OES project system was not a pro forma process, although, as in the case of USDA reviews of proposals, the OES deliberately attempted to reformulate the objectives of a project rather than reject it outright.43 Norwood Kerr states that in 1928 “only twenty-​three of the nearly 400 proposals were turned down. Yet in the same year, Washington reviewers insisted upon substantial modifications in another 105 of those proposed projects in an attempt to promote scientific productivity in the state agricultural experiment stations.”44 Thus, the OES continued its role of coordinating the expenditures and projects of the state experiment stations while promoting cooperative research efforts between the USDA and the stations. Cooperative research projects 40 True, Agricultural Experimentation and Research, 237; Kerr, The Legacy,  62–​63. 41 Huffman and Evenson, Science for Agriculture, ­chapter 3. 42 Huffman and Evenson, Science for Agriculture,  64–​67. 43 V. O. Key, The Administration of Federal Grants to States (Chicago: Public Administration Service, 1937), 43–​44. 44 Kerr, The Legacy, 67.

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grew over the 1920s, as was noted at the 1930 AAACES meeting, where the Joint Committee on Projects and Correlation of Research reported that almost 1,100 USDA experiment station projects were currently underway, about 200 more than the previous year. Finally, state agricultural departments absorbed some regulatory functions previously carried out by stations while appropriating more state funds for experiment work.45 Experiment station scientists published the results of their research in many places, including popular publications and scientific journals. Scientific discoveries irrespective of field were published in the Journal of Agricultural Research, edited by USDA and AAACES scientists. The journal, published from 1913 to 1949, reported important scientific findings of agricultural scientists for the public and private scientific communities. In 1931 an ESCOP special commission survey of the experiment stations noted that the “role of the Department [of Agriculture] in a national system for agricultural research should be that of advisor, contributor, and coordinator, rather than administrator […] The Department, […] because of its detachment from local influences, could be expected to bring into cooperation broad and unbiased views of the purposes and relations of research projects. It is in the position to coordinate the net results of all local research and translate them into the broadest and most fundamental meaning.” The commission also suggested that “the United States Department of Agriculture [should] establish and operate field stations or laboratories in any state only in definite cooperation with the state experiment stations.”46 In addition, various AAACES committees examined the nature of cooperative research projects. In 1931, for example, a special committee report on federal–​state relations remarked that the “fundamental finding of the committee [is] that in general mutually cordial and helpful relations exist between the Federal and State agencies, and there is constant improvement in the administration of the details of cooperative research.”47 The 1931 ESCOP special commission survey contributed to the passage five years later of the Bankhead–​ Jones Act that appropriated additional funds for state stations and the establishment of regional research laboratories to support cooperative research. Each laboratory worked on a specific problem: for example, poultry in Michigan or swine breeding in Iowa.48 These laboratories represented another significant step in the USDA’s efforts to contribute, through research, to the alleviation of the problems of 45 ESR 60 (1930): 103–​4. 46 Knoblauch et al., State Agricultural Experiment Station, 127. 47 ESR 66 (February 1932): 107; ESR 68 (February 1933): 139. 48 Kerr, The Legacy,  74–​75.

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American agriculture. During the 1920s and 1930s, one of the most pressing and persistent problems was overproduction. With large agricultural surpluses flooding depressed markets during the 1930s, President Roosevelt signed the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, which, among things, supported farm prices. This act also committed federal funds to establish and operate four regional laboratories that would investigate new uses of farm products.49 These laboratories centered their work on chemical and engineering research in order to improve the range of uses of agricultural products, especially by-​products. Each research center focused on regional crops; for example, the Southern laboratory concentrated on cotton, peanuts, and sweet potatoes, while the Northern laboratory carried out research projects on corn, wheat, and soybeans. Especially during World War II, these research laboratories contributed to the development of many new industrial and agricultural products, including rubber substitutes from dairy products (Northern), drugs from tobacco and buckwheat plants (Eastern), tire cord from cotton (South), and dried food products from fruits and vegetables (West).50 In 1947 the secretary of agriculture reorganized the research departments of the USDA (including the OES) and put them under the authority of the Agricultural Research Administration (renamed the Agricultural Research Administration Service [ARS] in 1953). The USDA streamlined its operations again in the 1950s after all funding for research purposes was consolidated in the Act of 1955 Consolidating the Hatch Act and Laws Supplementary Thereto. As had been the case in earlier reorganizations dating back to the days of James Wilson and Alfred True, the 1955 reorganization of the USDA was a basis for realigning its administrative structure to manage more effectively its new and varied activities.51 During the first half of the twentieth century, research by agricultural scientists at experiment stations and the USDA contributed enormously to the productivity of American agriculture. Robert Evenson, Paul Waggoner, and Vernon Ruttan have documented the enormous returns to investments in agricultural research (often on the order of 30–​40 percent per year, and in some cases much higher) in the United States and abroad throughout the twentieth century.52 Specifically, they estimated an annual rate of return on U.S. agricultural research expenditures of 65 percent for the period 1868–​1926 and 49 Moore, The Agriculture Research Service, 22. 50 T. Swann Harding, Two Blades of Grass:  A History of Scientific Development in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, reprint (New York: Arno Press, 1947), 53–​57. 51 Ruttan, “Bureaucratic Productivity.” 52 Robert E.  Evenson, Paul E.  Waggoner, and Vernon W.  Ruttan, “Economic Benefits from Research: An Example from Agriculture,” Science 205 (September 14, 1979), 1103.

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of between 95 and 110  percent for the period 1927–​50. According to the estimates of Evenson et al., federally sponsored research accounted for productivity growth rates of 1 percent per year from 1870 to 1900, and over 1 percent per year since 1925.53 Underlying these remarkable productivity results were sustained scientific advances over a wide range of crops and applications. The USDA and station scientists recorded notable successes in fending off damaging insects, particularly two formidable pests:  the Hessian fly that infested wheat and the boll weevil that infested cotton.54 Coordinated work between the USDA and stations successfully eradicated or reduced the impact of particular plant diseases—​for example, black rot that damaged sweet potatoes and wilt diseases that harmed cotton and other crop plants. Besides plant disease work, USDA and station scientists carried out plant-​science research directed toward developing geographically specific soybean, wheat, cotton, orchards, and tobacco varieties. In later years other research projects expanded the market for cotton by developing new uses for the raw material, such as wash and wear cottons, stretch cottons, and flame-​proof cottons. Soybean projects that focused on improved methods of processing the crop resulted in soybean oil and high-​protein meal from soya.55 In agriculture, the managerial revolution in the developmental state has focused on the role of the USDA and OES in planning and coordinating the production of knowledge in the land-​grant colleges and experiment stations in the United States. This managerial organization in the public sector is analogous to that which exists in the private sector, where the corporate headquarters of industrial enterprises plan and coordinate the activities of their divisions.56 From the late 1880s, the federal government had a strategy to develop American agriculture, and over the next half century or so put in place an organizational structure to generate the productive resources that economic development required. To be sure, numerous interested parties on the state and local levels influenced the evolution of the strategy and structure of the developmental state in American agriculture. But, as in the cases of the public-​sector AAACES or the private-​sector American Farm Bureau Federation, state and local interests quickly built national organizations that

53 Ibid., 1102. 54 Harding, Two Blades of  Grass. 55 Moore, The Agriculture Research Service, 24. 56 On the historical evolution of the multidivisional organizational structure, see Alfred D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the Industrial Enterprise (Boston: MIT Press, 1962).

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could interact with the federal government in shaping the nation’s agricultural strategy. Some economists have stressed the role of decentralized decision-​making in the successful development of American agriculture. For example, Zvi Griliches emphasizes the role of investment decisions at the farm level in response to market incentives in the diffusion of hybrid corn, although, in a subsequent article, he also calculates enormously high returns to the public-​ sector research that generated the technology.57 Farmers did respond to market incentives in adopting the new technologies. But as Clarke has argued persuasively, it was the political process, and in particular the New Deal legislation of the 1930s that stayed in place in the following decades, that structured market forces to induce farm investment.58 New Deal legislation that supported farm prices (the Agriculture Adjustment Acts) and that provided low-​cost and secure farm credit made it possible for farmers to adopt high-​fixed-​cost technologies like tractors that yielded substantial productivity gains and sharp declines in farm foreclosures.59 Although Clarke analyzes the case of tractors, an agricultural input produced in the private sector, she also recognizes that scientific advances coming mainly from the public sector increased yields per acre, which in turn increased the potential productivity gains that could be derived from mechanization that could decrease the number of labor-​hours per acre. It was the managerial revolution within the developmental state prior to the 1930s that made it possible for the government to restructure markets effectively during the crisis of the Great Depression. The role of the public sector in the development of technology has emphasized the decentralized character of the system of land-​grant colleges and experiment stations as the key to the success of the developmental state in U.S. agriculture.60 Specifically, the distribution of agricultural researchers across many different regions of the nation “exposes scientists to the problems of farmers, gives farmers and extension workers easy access to specialists and

57 Zvi Griliches, “Hybrid Corn:  An Exploration in the Economics of Technological Change,” Econometrica 25 (October 1957): 501–​22; Zvi Griliches, “Research Costs and Social Returns: Hybrid Corn and Related Innovations,” Journal of Political Economy 66 (1958): 419–​31. 58 Sally Clarke, “New Deal Regulation and the Revolution in American Farm Productivity: A Case Study of the Diffusion of the Tractor in the Corn Belt, 1920–​ 1940,” Journal of Economic History 51 (March 1991): 101–​23; Clarke, “ ‘Innovation’ in U.S. Agriculture.” 59 Clarke, “ ‘Innovation’ in U.S. Agriculture.” 60 Evenson, Waggoner, and Ruttan, “Economic Benefits from Research.”

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their libraries, spin off talent and ideas to a locality and gives a region the technological capacity essential to development.”61 The importance of this decentralized structure for diffusing and improving agricultural technology emerged as the outcome of a national strategy to increase agricultural productivity. The very existence of scientific advances to be diffused and improved, as well as the very existence of the land-​grant colleges, experiment stations, and cooperative extension services to do the diffusing and improving can only be understood in terms of the historical evolution of a national system of agricultural innovation.62 The events leading up to the federal funding of cooperative extension services is a case in point. In 1913 the Joint Committee on Projects and Correlation, composed of representatives selected by the AAACES and the secretary of agriculture, analyzed federally funded work of the USDA, agricultural colleges, and experiment stations. Their report noted the need for an expansion of extension services. The committee’s report contributed to the passage in 1914 of the Smith–​Lever Act, which funded the diffusion of knowledge to farmers through extension services provided by the land-​grant colleges and the experiment stations. Commenting on the Act in 1914, David F. Houston, the secretary of agriculture, noted: “We are in reality one family, working in different jurisdictions to serve the same people.”63 The extension service would now be responsible for all rural farmer educational activities, including demonstration farms, adult education programs, and farmers’ institutes. Many local substations were set up to bring experiment station scientists in closer contact with farmers. The service’s task, carried out by a multitude of county agents, was to inform farmers of the latest agricultural improvements generated by publicly supported research.64 By the 1920s on a nationwide basis in agriculture, a highly integrated, committed, and productive public-​sector organization for developing knowledge was complemented by a highly integrated, committed, and productive public-​sector organization for diffusing knowledge. In The Wallaces of Iowa, Russell Lord, a prominent farm journalist and associate of Henry A. Wallace, summed up the organizational revolution that had occurred in middle and lower management of the developmental state:

61 Ibid., 1105. 62 On national systems of innovation more generally, see Richard R. Nelson, ed., National Innovation Systems (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). 63 Knoblauch et al., State Agricultural Experiment Station, 113. 64 Rasmussen, Taking the University to the People; Huffman and Evenson, Science for Agriculture, ­chapter 2,  52–​53.

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When we lament, as we often do in this republic, the lack of a college-​ trained group of civil servants specifically trained in tasks of administration and statesmanship, we overlook the fact that in one important particular we are well supplied. The Land Grant Agricultural Colleges, established in the states in the time of Lincoln, have been turning out year by year not only thousands of trained technicians in the special branches of agriculture, but economists, sociologists, and administrators whose approach to events is trained and generally realistic. And the in-​ service training which many such men and women acquire after graduation in the Agricultural Extension Service, as county agents, state supervisors, and state or regional administrators, for instance, inclines to instill a considerable degree of skill and competence in public affairs. These men and women customarily work facing real people, out on the ground. One reason that Triple-​A was able to forward its programs, it may well be argued, where NRA so largely failed, lies in the fact that Triple-​A could be and was staffed from the first with specifically trained and, on the whole, educated people.65 Particularly at the lower management level of agricultural extension, the contribution of the public-​sector organization to the success of the New Deal legislation was organizational as well as technological. From the 1910s, county agents had become key figures in organizing private-​sector farm bureaus that brought together local farmers for educational and political purposes. In 1919 these local farm bureaus quickly amalgamated to form the American Farm Bureau Federation, a private-​sector organization that became the most powerful advocate of the interests of commercial farmers over the following decades.66 Those interests, they understood, were served by the federal government through a national system of innovation designed to develop and diffuse technology to farmers. During the crisis years of the 1930s, the county agents, in conjunction with the farm bureaus, were called upon not only to diffuse technical knowledge to farmers but also to implement New Deal programs such as crop reduction.67 With the passing of the Great Depression, however, there was a growing concern that public-​ sector employees in agriculture were becoming the servants of only the wealthier segment of the farm population rather than 65 Russell Lord, The Wallaces of Iowa (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1947), 380–​81. 66 Kile, The Farm Bureau; McConnell, Decline of Agrarian Democracy; Howard, Howard and the Farm Bureau. 67 Richard S. Kirkendall, Social Scientists and Farm Politics in the Age of Roosevelt (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1966).

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of the farm population as a whole. Early in the New Deal, in an address to the American Economic Association, M. L. Wilson, a major agricultural economist in the Roosevelt administration, had recognized the dangers of an “engineered agriculture” as opposed to a “living agriculture” for a large segment of the agricultural population. An engineered agriculture is going to require much fewer workers than a mode of living agriculture. It has been estimated that we could easily release two million of the six million farm families now on the land for other productive industry and thereby improve both the status of the four million families remaining on the land and increase the productivity of society as a whole. The question arises, where will the two million families go, especially as we have now between eight and ten million unemployed? How can they be fitted into new walks of life without great human sacrifice? This comes very near to the crux of the agricultural problem.68 Subsequent history would show that the reduction of 2 million farms of which Wilson spoke in 1933 would take about two decades, with another reduction of 2 million farms taking about two decades more.69 As an “engineered agriculture” took hold, the farm sector became much more productive and much less populous. By the second half of the twentieth century, there was reason to argue that private-​sector interest groups—​the Farm Bureau in Grant McConnell’s The Decline of Agrarian Democracy [1969; originally published in 1953] and agribusiness in James Hightower’s Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times [1978; originally published in 1972]—​dominated the agricultural sector, including the land-​grant colleges and the experiment stations, in pursuit of their own ends. In the aftermath of the New Deal, poor (or what the USDA called “noncommercial”) farmers had little future in agriculture, while the richer (“commercial”) farmers as well as the private-​sector suppliers of agricultural equipment, implements, fertilizers, and seeds had privileged access to highly effective public-​sector organizations for developing and diffusing technology. In the process, the developmental state in American agriculture was a success in introducing new technology and raising productivity in American agriculture. The developmental state has also been important in opening up and expanding global markets for U.S.  agricultural

68 Quoted in Lord, The Wallaces of Iowa, 370; see also Kirkendall, Social Scientists and Farm Politics (1966). 69 U.S. Bureau of the Census (1976), 457.

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exports.70 Today, the agricultural sector remains of prime importance to American economic prosperity. Grain products, soya products, and cotton continue to account for a considerable amount of agricultural exports. In these products and many others, the United States outstrips the productivity levels of every other nation in the world. But the American-​style developmental state also was exclusive in the sense that, with the passing of the New Deal and its coterie of social reformers close to President Roosevelt, little attention was paid to the fate of the millions of farm families who could not continue to make a living in agriculture. No comparable developmental state existed in industry where the vast majority of displaced farmers had to find work in blue-​collar jobs that demanded little in the way of skills.71 This legacy of unskilled shop-​floor work, as well as a more recent decline of concerted commitments to scientific research, is now a pressing problem facing American industry in its attempts to be internationally competitive. The case of American agriculture shows that the developmental state is not alien to the nation. For developing and utilizing productive resources, moreover, the organizational principles of an effective developmental state are analogous to the organizational principles of an effective business organization in the private sector. The lessons of the past in agriculture suggest that the United States can build a developmental state in its efforts to be a world industrial leader. The demands of the present for a highly skilled workforce suggest that the developmental state that is put in place will have to be more inclusive in its distribution of productive capabilities than the developmental state that gave the nation the world’s most productive agricultural sector.

70 Ezra Vogel, Comeback: Case by Case: Building the Resurgence of American Business (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), ­chapter 8. 71 See William Lazonick, Competitive Advantages on the Shop Floor (Boston, MA:  Harvard University Press, 1990), ­chapters 7–​9.

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Veysey, Lawrence R. The Emergence of the American University. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965. Vogel, Ezra. Comeback: Case by Case: Building the Resurgence of American Business. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985. Wade, Robert. Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Waggoner, Paul E. “Research and Education in American Agriculture.” In Two Centuries of American Agriculture, edited by Vivian Wiser. Berkeley: Published for the Agricultural History Society by the University of California Press, 1976. Willard, Julius Terrass. History of the Kansas State College of Agricultural and Applied Science. Manhattan: Kansas State College Press, 1940. Wiser, Vivian, ed. Two Centuries of American Agriculture. Berkeley: Published for the Agricultural History Society by the University of California Press, 1976. Wintle, Michael. “Agrarian History in the Netherlands in the Modern Period: A Review and Bibliography.” Agricultural History Review 39 (1991): 65–​73. Woodward, Carl R., and Ingrid N. Waller. New Jersey’s Agricultural Experiment Station, 1880–​ 1930. New Brunswick: New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, 1932. Wright, G. France in Modern Times. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995.

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INDEX

AAACES. See American Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations Adams Act (1906) 23, 50, 64, 65, 76, 84, 89–​90, 93 Agricultural Adjustment Act (1938) 96, 98 Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky 30 agricultural county agents 4, 26, 41–​42, 44, 82–​83, 99, 100 agricultural development experiment stations in 42–​43 funding for 3, 8, 9, 13, 16, 20, 43–​44, 47–​51, 57, 60, 64–​65, 75–​76, 82–​90 German experiment stations in 55–​69 government role in 42–​53, 79–​89 Hatch Act (1887) in 8–​9, 14, 18, 23, 26, 33–​34, 43, 48, 50, 62, 84, 86, 88–​89, 96 innovations for 44–​5, 47, 80 labor-​saving machines  43 land-​rant colleges in 42–​43 Morrill Land Grant Acts (1862 and 1890) in 3, 27, 28–​33, 42, 86 OES role in 43–​44, 48–​53 organizational learning for 44–​45 Smith-​Lever Act (1914) in 38, 39, 43–​44, 82, 85, 94, 99 True’s vision for 47–​53 USDA role in 42–​53 Wilson’s vision for 44–​53 agricultural education 28–​40 in land-​grant colleges 28–​40 USDA role in 33–​8 vocational 36–​37, 39 agricultural innovations 44–​45, 80 agricultural productivity 1, 4, 34, 59–​60

Agricultural Research Administration Service (ARS) 87 Agricultural Research and Marketing Act 85 agricultural scientists 23–​24 American 55, 61–​63, 68–​69 for managerial revolution, training of  28, 34 agriculture machinery 2–​3, 38, 43, 78, 79 Allen, Edwin W. 63 American agriculture developmental state role in 80 development of 3–​4, 41–​53 experiment stations for 7–​26 export of products 42, 78 farms 81–​82 financial resources for 3, 78 funding for 3, 8, 9, 13, 16, 20, 43–​44, 47–​51, 57, 60, 64–​65, 75–​76, 82–​90 German experiment stations role in 14, 16, 55–​69 global markets for 3 government role in 3–​4, 43–​53, 79–​89 investment in 1–​4 in land-​grant colleges role in 28–​40 machinery 2–​3, 38, 43, 78, 79 managerial revolution in 4, 28–​40 to national economy 1–​4, 41–​43, 77–​78 new product development 3 technological limitations in 81 technological transformation of 2, 78, 101–​2 transatlantic process in 55–​69 American Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations (AAACES) 8–​9, 33, 51, 89, 91, 95

10

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American economy 1–​2, 39 agriculture, investment in 1–​4, 41–​43, 77–​78 business corporation role in 28, 39, 41 educational system for 28–​40 government’s role in 41–​42, 79–​89 land-​grant college system into 28–​40 American Farm Bureau Federation 100 Anderson, J. T. 67 Armsby, Henry P. 67 ARS. See Agricultural Research Administration Service Atwater, Wilbur O. 63 Bankhead–​Jones Act (1936) 85, 95 Belgium 73–​74 Bureau of Agricultural Economics 94 Bureau of Animal Industry 50 Bureaus 87 Caldwell, George Chapman 62, 63 Carver, George Washington 46 cattle ticks 50 Chandler, Alfred D. 84 Cook, George 62 cooperative extension service 43–​44, 52, 82–​83, 86, 99 cooperative research projects 94–​95 corn 42 Cornell, Ezra 29 Decline of Agrarian Democracy 101 Eddy, Edward 90 entomology experiments 20 ESCOP. See Experiment Station Committee on Organization and Policy European agricultural development 71–​76 European experiment stations 14. See also German experiment stations Evenson, Robert 96 Experiment Station Committee on Organization and Policy (ESCOP) 92–​93 Experiment Station Record (Record) 9–​13, 88 experiment stations for American agriculture 7–​26, 55 characteristics 14 educational work 18

European 14 experiments in United States 21, 55 funding for 3, 8, 9, 13, 16, 20, 43–​44, 47–​51, 57, 60, 64–​65, 75–​76, 82–​90 German 14, 16, 55–​69 goal of  18 OES and 7–​26 pattern of agricultural research in 10–​13 researches 20–​6, 88–​100 scientists 23–​24 farmers 2–​4, 9, 14, 17, 18–​19, 22–​26 federal agricultural research organizations 87 Finlay, Mark 57 France 72–​74 French agriculture 60 German agriculture North Sea nations and 72–​75 productivity 59–​60, 72–​73 success 71 German experiment stations 14, 16, 55–​69 1870–​1920  71–​76 agricultural science, researches in 57–​69 in animal metabolism 58 European agricultural development and 71–​76 high-​quality equipments  58–​59 investigations of  56 learning process 57 organizational structure 57–​58 records 66 success of 57, 60–​61 transatlantic exchanges 56–​69 Goessmann, Charles A. 63 Griliches, Zvi 98 Halle station, Prussia 64 Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times 101 Hatch Act (1887) 8–​9, 14, 18, 23, 26, 33–​34, 43, 48, 50, 62, 84, 86, 88–​89, 96 Hightower, James 101 Hilgard, Eugene W. 63 Homestead Act 30 horticulture tests 20 Houston, David F. 99

1

Index innovations, agricultural 44–​45, 51–​52, 80–​81, 84, 99–​100 International Harvester 2 Jim, Tama 47 John Deere 2, 43, 78 Johnson, S. W. 63 Johnson, Samuel W. 61 Jordan, David Starr 91 Jordan, W. H. 17 Kerr, Norwood 94 Knapp, Seaman 38 land-​grant colleges 3, 28–​40 agricultural and mechanic arts colleges 29–​30 in agricultural education 28–​40 for agricultural scientists 28–​29 California 29 diversities 29 enrollments by course in 35 experts 36–​37 financial support to 32–​33 grants for 29 for industrial engineers 28–​29 Massachusetts 29 social and cultural value of  31 land-​grant universities  27 Lazonick, William 44 Lord, Russell 99 Maerker, Max 62, 64 managerial revolution in agriculture and industry 4, 28–​40, 79–​89, 97–​100 in developmental state 97 in manufacturing 83 in public sector 97 Massachusetts Agricultural College 30 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 30, 39 McConnell, Grant 101 McCormick 78 McKinley, William 44 Morrill Land Grant Acts (1862 and 1890) 3, 27, 28–​33, 42, 86

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National Soil Fertility League 38 Neale, Arthur 62, 64 Netherlands 60, 73–​74 New Deal legislation (1930s) 98, 100 Noble, David 39 OES. See Office of Experiment Stations Office of Experiment Stations (OES) 7–​26, 33, 55, 65–​66, 76, 84, 87–​96 in agricultural development 43–​44, 48–​53 bulletins 10, 13, 14, 16–​17, 19, 22, 24–​25 criticism 20, 22–​23 and experiment stations 7–​26 farmers and 9, 14, 17, 18–​19, 22–​26 issues 14 model station 14 review process 89–​90 veterinarian research 16–​17 organizational learning 41–​42, 44–​45, 57, 71 O’Sullivan, Mary 44 practical 27 problem solving 27 Pugh, Evan 62–​63 Purdue University 30–​31 Purnell Act (1925) 85, 94 Rockefeller-​endowed General Education Board 38 Roebuck, Sears 38 Ruttan, Vernon 93, 96 Schumpeter, Joseph 80 Scovill, J. H. V. 62 secondary school system 31–​32 Silver, Charles W. 63 Smith, John 67 Smith-​Lever Act (1914) 38, 39, 43–​44, 82, 85, 94, 99 tick fever 50 transatlantic process 55–​69 Triple-​A  100 True, Alfred C. 7, 44, 48–​53, 64, 75, 89, 91, 96

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United Kingdom 73–​74 United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) 1, 3, 8, 26, 33–​38, 41, 42–​53, 55, 78, 84, 87–​96 USDA. See United States Department of Agriculture Veysey, Lawrence 29 vocational secondary education 36–​37, 39

Waggoner, Paul 96 Wagner, Paul 67 Wallace, Henry A. 99 The Wallaces of Iowa 99 Washington, Booker T. 46 Wilson, James 44–​53, 64, 75, 89, 92, 96 Wilson, M. L. 101 Wright, Carroll D. 91