| From
the February 2, 2006, edition of “Northwest This Week.”
The following is excerpted
from “Transitions: A Hundred Years of Northwest” by
Dr. Janice Brandon-Falcone. An illustrated history of the University’s
first 100 years, “Transitions” is available from the
Bearcat Bookstore on the first floor of the J.W. Jones Student
Union. The book can also be purchased online at www.nwmissouri.bkstore.com
or by calling (660) 562-1246 (ext. 1246 on campus).
From the earliest years, agriculture had
been among the course offerings, and it followed that the school
ought to practice what it preached, or at least what it taught.
Related to but separate from the courses taught, the farm was
the laboratory for inculcating farm practices, developing test
plots for the latest methods in soil and plant sciences, and creating
operations in animal science that included a dairy barn, as well
as poultry, swine and sheep production.
The first short course in agriculture was
offered in 1907. In 1908, there was an Agriculture Department,
and the Board of Regents authorized a committee to see about establishing
a branch of the State Agricultural College in Maryville. Before
that happened, however, a funding crisis occurred, and state funding
was terminated in December 1908. …
In summer 1910, the farming venture consisted
of an onion patch south of the almost-finished Administration
Building. … (By) 1911 the onions were out, but the Agriculture
Department claimed that part of the campus for testing corn plots
as well as garden plots. However, with the addition of a landscape
gardener, the farming operation needed a more permanent home.
The farm was relocated to north of the Administration Building,
close to the Wabash Railroad right-of-way.
Special appropriations by the Missouri Legislature
granted funding for the greenhouse as well as a sizeable amount
($10,000) for farm equipment. Land had been leased (from Elizabeth
Prather) north of the Wabash Railroad, and the school acquired
a dairy herd. The farm had become a regular part of the school’s
budget as well as its curriculum.
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