New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Stations.

With the passage of the Morrill Act in 1864, Rutgers College was designated the Land-Grant college for New Jersey. As a land-grant college, it developed the State College for Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts for a scientific program of study, as well as an experimental farm known as the College Farm. This act provided federal aid to colleges through land grants. The college developed courses in civil engineering and mechanics, as well as chemistry and agriculture. George H. Cook, a Rutgers professor, was named Professor of Chemistry and of Theory and Practice of Agriculture in 1862. Much of the early experimentation at the College Farm was in chemical fertilizers for crops of corn, potatoes, wheat, and other crops.

As the decade passed, more experiments were conducted on the College Farm for the benefit of state farmers. Additional aid was sought for these experiments from the State government. In 1880, Cook, with the support of the State Board of Agriculture, succeeded in securing State funds for agriculture experimentation with the passage of legislature establishing the New Jersey Agriculture Experiment Stations.

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