The Origin and Development of the Office of Farm Management in the U. S. Department of Agriculture

A review of the early work in the Office of Farm Management, United States Department of Agriculture, centers closely around the life and work of the late Prof. W. J. Spillman. Thirty years ago next Friday, January 1, 1902, Professor Spillman began his work with the department. A word as to his early training and experience will help to better understand the important contributions he made to American agriculture. He was born in Lawrence County, Missouri, October 23, 1863; son of Judge Nathan Cosby and Emily (Paralee) Spillman; B.S., University of Missouri, 1886; M.S., 1889; D.Sc., 1910. After leaving the University of Missouri, in addition to his graduate work, Professor Spillman was a teacher of elementary science in the state normal schools and Vincennes University. In his university career, he devoted himself to the biological and physical sciences rather than to agriculture. He was an expert mathematician. Leaving Indiana, he taught in the Monmouth State Normal School in the Willamette Valley, Oregon. In 1894, a year when thousands of bushels of No. 1 wheat sold at eighteen cents per bushel in the Palouse Country of eastern Washington, Spillman was chosen professor of agriculture and head of the experiment station of the new state agricultural college at Pullman, Washington. Such a position required an inventive turn of mind, especially for analyzing and organizing the courses of study and research. In addition, the position required that the head of such a department have the gift of popular presentation of his subject. It was in those early days that he laid the foundations to become a missionary of the gospel of a new agriculture. The next eight years of Spillman's life were devoted to an intense study of the problems of agronomy, crop rotations, and plant breeding in a new agricultural region-one that would test the resources of the most experienced worker. During these years some of his experiences in studying the farm practices of that wheat growing district convinced him that many farmers had already worked out an answer to some of the most difficult questions. He never lost sight of the funda-