History of the College of Agriculture at the University of Idaho, written by Clifton E. Anderson

273 Pages·2001·2.44 MB·English

by  Clifton E. Anderson

Issued in furtherance of cooperative extension work in agriculture and home economics, Acts of May 8 and
June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, LeRoy D. Luft, Director of Cooperative
Extension System, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho 83844. The University of Idaho provides equal
opportunity in education and employment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender,
disability, or status as a Vietnam-era veteran, as required by state and federal laws.
Banquet in the dairy barn for Old Violet - Porche Ormsby, 1923.
Photo courtesy of University of Idaho historical photograph collection
— Table of Contents —
Preface...............................................................1
Chapter 1 ...........................................................3
A Partnership is Created
Chapter 2 .........................................................19
Finding a Focus
Chapter 3 .........................................................49
Enduring the ’20s
Chapter 4 .........................................................69
The Great Depression
Chapter 5 .........................................................93
War and Post-war
Chapter 6 .......................................................121
Building New Technologies
Chapter 7 .......................................................137
Changes Accelerate in the 1960s
Chapter 8 .......................................................157
A Billion-dollar Industry
Chapter 9 .......................................................175
Completing the First Century
Appendix .......................................................195
Index .............................................................265
About the Author...........................................277
Preface
From its formation in 1889, the University of Idaho has endeavored to serve
the agricultural interests of the Gem State. Farm families and agriculture-re-
lated industries supported the university as it struggled to establish its re-
search and Extension programs on a statewide basis. When agricultural
problems occur, Idahoans turn to the University of Idaho College of Agricul-
ture for help. Time and again the problem-solving resources of the UI Col-
lege of Agriculture have helped the people of Idaho overcome difficulties and
achieve significant progress.
In the following pages, I review the record of the excellent cooperation that
has linked Idaho’s agricultural industry and the UI College of Agriculture.
During a century of working together, rural people and University educators
have forged a productive and harmonious partnership. How this partnership
has developed through ten decades is my central theme in this history.
The primary sources used are University of Idaho papers and records, and ar-
ticles printed in the Idaho Farmer-Stockman (and its predecessors, Gem State
Ruralist and Idaho Farmer). Many of the UI papers I used were collected and
assembled by Maurice E. Johnson. Because of his diligence, useful historical
materials have been preserved. Papers that he rescued from oblivion include
interviews Marion Hepworth conducted with pioneer rural women and remi-
niscences of early-day Extension workers. These reminiscences were written
in the 1950s in response to requests made by J. Warren Barber, who wanted
to compile the candid recollections of old-timers who helped establish the
Extension work in Idaho.
In the University of Idaho archives, I consulted several collections of papers
dealing with College of Agriculture programs. Especially interesting were the
scrapbooks of E. J. Iddings, long-time dean of the College.
Bill Stellmon shared with me tapes of interviews he conducted several years
ago with retired College of Agriculture faculty members. These interviews
provide valuable information about Idaho agriculture and the University of
Idaho during the past 50 years. I hope it will be possible in the years ahead to
add new recordings to this important oral history series.
Historical facts up to 1960 were compiled by C. W. Hungerford in his His-
torical Review of the Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station (Idaho Agricul-
tural Research Progress Report, No. 36, April 1960). Information about UI
1
entomologists and entomology projects is well presented by A. R. Gittins and
D. R. Scott, History of Entomology at the University of Idaho (1989).
The history of the Parma Agricultural Experiment Station is told fully and in
a lively, interesting manner by DeLance Franklin in a series of newspaper
articles, beginning with “Farmers’ fight against weevil led to Parma research
center” (The Idaho Free Press and The News-Tribune Feb. 24, 1976, Nampa
and Caldwell, Idaho).
I am certain that many present and former residents of Idaho have additional
information concerning the UI College of Agriculture’s help to the state’s ag-
ricultural industry. If you have such information, please share it with us.
Address your communications to: Ag College History, c/o Agricultural Com-
munications Center, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho 83844-2332.
Clifton Anderson
2
Chapter 1
A Partnership is Created
A nine-member Board of Regents met for the first time April 25, 1889, and
organized the University of Idaho. At that meeting, regents must have dis-
cussed two laws passed by Congress. What would be the educational mis-
sion of the new university? What financial help could the federal
government provide? To deal with these questions, the founders had to con-
sider the provisions of the Morrill Act, passed in 1862, and the Hatch Act,
enacted in 1887.
The Morrill Act established the U.S. land-grant educational system. The fed-
eral government would use a portion of its holdings of public land to foster
education in agriculture and mechanical arts. To qualify for a land grant, the
government required a state or territorial educational institution “to teach
such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts
— in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial
classes in the several pursuits and professions of life.”
Responding to the financial inducements of the Morrill Act, state govern-
ments in all sections of the country set up new college and university pro-
grams. State educational institutions became centers for scientific research,
and they initiated programs for the instruction of agriculturists, engineers,
and scientists in many academic specialties.
The Hatch Act supplemented the Morrill Act by providing funds earmarked
for agricultural research. The act encouraged each state or territory to oper-
ate an experiment station at its land-grant institution. By establishing an ag-
UI campus early in the century.
Roy E. Taylor Photo Collection
3
A Partnership is Created
ricultural experiment station and complying with the provisions of the Hatch
Act, the University of Idaho would be assured an annual appropriation of
$15,000. In order to obtain this subsidy, the Board of Regents voted on Feb-
ruary 26, 1892, to immediately organize the Idaho Agricultural Experiment
Station on the university campus at Moscow. When the University of Idaho
opened for classes on October 3, 1892, the experiment station had been in
operation for seven months.
University Financial help from the federal government was of
critical importance to the University of Idaho in its
Gains
early years. Congress in 1890 enacted a second
Federal
Morrill Act, providing an award of $15,000 a year
Funds to each land-grant college for instructional pro-
grams. This assistance would increase in the years
ahead. In the future, funds for agricultural experiment stations would be
augmented also.
In its first year of operation, the University of Idaho could depend on grants
of $30,000 from the federal government — $15,000 in Morrill Act funds
and $15,000 in Hatch Act funds. Grants increased in subsequent years. The
federal government was being more generous than the state government in
providing support to the University, complained Joseph P. Blanton, the sec-
ond UI president. “The largest (state) appropriation that has ever been given
to the institution is $6,000 a year. The federal government, on the other
hand, gives $39,000 annually,” Blanton said in 1898.
During the 1800s, science and technology trans-
Science
formed many aspects of American life. This was
Offers the century of the telegraph and the telephone,
Bright steam-driven ships and railroads, petroleum-pow-
ered internal combustion engines, and factories
Prospects
geared for mass production. Biological research-
ers achieved life-saving improvements in surgery,
An early horticulture class (about 1899) was photographed in the greenhouse.
Historical Photograph Collection, UI Library, 1-210-10
4
Chapter 1
medicine, and nutrition. Investigators were beginning to understand micro-
organisms and their relationships to other living things. Scientists created a
modern, pragmatic approach that was at one and the same time visionary
(optimistically looking forward to the systematic, step-by-step solution of
major problems) and practical (recognizing the complexity of persistent
problems and the need for ongoing appraisal and refinement of scientific
knowledge).
In Idaho as elsewhere, people had high expectations about science’s ability
to improve the standard of life. Idaho’s population in 1890 was predomi-
nantly rural, and rural life was beset with problems.
Science offered possible solutions to pressing difficulties encountered by
farmers who settled Idaho. New varieties of wheat, oats, and other crops
were needed to take the place of varieties that performed well in the East but
were not suited to Idaho conditions. There were serious animal health prob-
lems — livestock diseases, poisonous range plants, and nutritional deficien-
cies. Irrigation problems required attention, and the management of Western
soils was often a difficult challenge.
The McCormick reaper, invented in 1831, had
Experiment promised to usher agriculture into a new era of
Stations mechanization. Similarly, effective chemical con-
trols of crop pests appeared to be in prospect when
Offer Help
the Bordeaux mixture became a popular fungicide
in France. In 1890 farmers were still waiting for
the golden age. Machines had not yet taken the hard work out of farming
and there were few chemical weapons in agriculture’s arsenal.
When grasshoppers invaded Idaho agricultural areas settlers used a primi-
tive type of warfare. They dug ditches and tried to trap the insect hordes in
these perimeter defenses. If the grasshoppers got past the barriers an attack
could be mounted with a homemade device called the hopperdozer. This was
a sled-like affair drawn by horses with a platform mounted on runners and a
cloth shield stretched between two supports at the rear of the platform. Pans
filled with coal oil or water (or coal oil plus water) were placed in front of
the shield. As the hopperdozer moved through a field, grasshoppers flew up,
hit the shield and, if all worked well, dropped into the pans.
To cope with their problems the only help farmers could depend on was self-
help. Newspapers carried stories about the advances of science, but farmers
were receiving few benefits. Through its agricultural research programs the
University of Idaho proposed to bring science to the service of Gem State
farmers.
5
A Partnership is Created
The problems of Idaho farmers varied from region to region, and the Board
of Regents recognized at the outset Idaho’s need for several agricultural ex-
periment stations. In 1892, after establishing the home station in Moscow,
the board created three research facilities in Grangeville, Idaho Falls, and
Nampa. Although these branch stations were closed in 1896, research units
were opened at other locations in later years. Service to the rural people of
the state was the primary goal of the Idaho Agricultural Experiment Sta-
tion, according to its first director, Robert Milliken. Writing in an 1892 re-
port, he said: “The work of the Station belongs exclusively to the farmers
of Idaho. In this work the Authorities of the Station have but one end only
in view, and that is the rendering of definite, practical assistance to the farm-
ers of the State.”
As set forth in the Hatch Act, the two goals of ag-
Researchers ricultural experiment stations were to develop
Seek “useful and practical information on subjects con-
nected with Agriculture, and to promote scientific
Two Goals
investigation and experiment respecting the prin-
ciples and applications of agricultural science.” In
other words, an agricultural experiment station should be concerned with
immediate, problem-solving research and also with long-term investiga-
tions. On the one hand, it would deal with “useful and practical informa-
tion”; on the other, it would engage in bonafide scientific investigation.
How to balance the two aspects of experiment station work was a continu-
ing problem. The U.S. Department of Agriculture provided oversight of sta-
tion operations, and this influenced the direction agricultural research
moved. USDA officials were determined that state agricultural experiment
stations should conform to exacting standards of scientific research. Direc-
tors of state experiment stations developed important research programs,
but at times they had to settle for less-than-perfect research procedures.
It was not easy for a young university to launch a
Research
comprehensive program of agricultural research.
Projects
What could be accomplished with meager funds,
Not Always a small staff, and extremely limited research fa-
Adequate cilities? Early projects at the UI had serious inad-
equacies. Before 1900, UI researchers attempted
to evaluate several varieties of potatoes. They sent 600 packages of seed
potatoes to farmers in every county of the state and asked them to make test
plantings and then report the results. In much the same way, UI researchers
sent out samples of sugar beet seed far and wide. Experiments of this type
had limited value because the researchers could not control the conditions
under which the potatoes or beets were grown, harvested or evaluated. Lack
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Chapter 1
of controls handicapped researchers and so did a shortage of instruments and
equipment. UI College of Agriculture scientists had virtually no research fa-
cilities when the university opened in 1892. Year by year, facilities im-
proved. Then, in 1906, agricultural research suffered a setback. The
Administration Building was destroyed by fire and most of the equipment
and records of College of Agriculture researchers were lost.
In the university’s first year of operation, six fac-
Building ulty members were paid from Agricultural Experi-
ment Station funds. The station’s director was an
A Research
“agriculturist,” while the other faculty members
Staff
were trained in chemistry, geology, and other aca-
demic disciplines only tangentially connected with
agricultural science. Similar situations occurred at
other land-grant colleges and universities. At some institutions administra-
tors used considerable imagination while making agricultural research ap-
pointments. Coming to Washington Agricultural College in Pullman as the
new president in 1895, Enoch A. Bryan found that an assistant horticulturist
on his staff knew little about horticulture but was an accomplished musician
and an excellent song leader. Other colleges and universities sometimes used
agricultural experiment station funds to augment their instructional budgets.
Before long, however, land-grant colleges and universities were adding
well-qualified researchers to their faculties.
A turn-of-the-century photo shows well-dressed UI tree planters at work.
Historical Photograph Collection, UI Library, 1-210-15
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