Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1926 [PAGE 134]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1924]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

131

November 21, 1924 M y Dear Doctor Noble: I am enclosing letter from Mr. Herman Schwake, President of the Cook County Farm Bureau and copy of m y reply, which letters are self-explanatory. With kindest personal regards, I am, Yours very truly, Doctor W . L. Noble, Len Small 31 North LaSalle Street, Chicago, Illinois November 30, 1924 His Excellency Governor Len Small, State House, Springfield, Illinois Dear Governor: Yours of November 21st, 1924, enclosing a letter from the Cook County Farm Bureau (Mr. Herman Schwake) received. I will write Mr. Schwake and also bring the matter to the attention of the trustees of the University. Trusting that everything is progressing favorably with you, I am, Very truly yours,

W. L. Noble,

President Board of Trustees November 10, 1924 The Honorable Governor of Illinois, Springfield, Illinois Dear Sir: At the last session of the Illinois Legislature, the Cook County Farm Bureau and Truck Gardeners Association went before that body and secured the passage of a bill appropriating $25,000 for a truck experiment station for northern Illinois. Recognizing the justice of the appeal of 10,000 truck farmers from the Chicago gardening district for experimental data upon their particular crops on their soils and in their climate, you graciously signed the bill, and it became a law. W e then felt sure that the old injustice of a section of the state paying roughly one-third of the taxes for the maintenance of the Agricultural College and Experiment Station, and receiving no recognition or attention to its particular gardening problems, would cease. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. For, while the appropriation has been available sixteen months and will, we understand, expire in eight months, the proposed station has not yet been located. It is true that a certain amount of garden plot work has been carried on this past season by the Horticulture Department of the Agricultural College upon three farms in Cook County, but this work does not go far enough, for the land is only rented from season to season, and no degree of permanency attaches to it, such as the act of the Legislature clearly implies. At the time the committee from the Cook County Farm Bureau appeared before the Appropriations Committees of the recent Legislature, two high officials of the University and Agricultural College came to Springfield to dissuade us in asking the appropriation, which they held was irregular. However, when they found we were not to be turned aside, they made no further comment. Knowing these facts, and seeing the delay in locating the Station, some of our farmers are wondering if the movement for a truck experiment station is to die through default, i.e., not using the appropriation for establishing a station, but for desultory truck experimental work. Understand, Governor, that we do not charge willful evasion of duty, but we are merely pointing out the state of mind that is developing here as a result ot tardiness in locating the Station. W e believe that the whole movement is in jeopardy, and that, for the Agricultural College's own future in this section of the state, as well as for the good of the northern Illinois truck farmers, who grow each year ?2o,ooo,ooo worth of vegetables, prompt action is imperative. W e know that you can help in this matter. W e have talked it over with John Collier,attentionsuggested we as well as in otherand we want tried to expressthat we quired and he help your earliest convenience, matters. Wwillyou to know our feeling appreciate your at in this, write you. W e feel sure you e give the matter the re-