Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1914 [PAGE 733]

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1914]

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES.

731

appropriations; or of serving the public, because an institutional community, like any other, should serve itself in the usual ways, though the University cannot be criticized for doing what it may to improve the living conditions of the students, which at best are none too good. Because of the frequency and bitterness of this criticism in all localities of our kind, it seems well that I should lay before you the reasons that compel many agricultural departments to engage in commercial activity at certain points, first of all remarking that for two internal reasons these activities are always kept at the minimum consistent with serving their purpose. First, we are not and cannot afford to be organized for commercial work; and second, because at best the net result of commercial enterprises in any educational organization is a money loss to the interest involved. What then are the conditions that force such activities upon departments? In general, commercial dealings on the part of departments of the University arise naturally and inevitably in the course of conducting their regular work either of experimentation or instruction. To show how this can be, I will mention specific instances.

DISPOSAL OF CROPS.

Besides its home grounds, the University is operating some forty experimental fields in different parts of the State. On all these fields crops are grown. Manifestly in the interest of the taxpayers the crops should be disposed of and the income turned back into the work for which the department is organized. To destroy these crops simply because they belong to the State and might in ,an infinitesimal way affect the market values is too puerile to deserve attention. The product of an experimental orchard may or may not be in the same category. If the question involved is simply one of yield, the crop should be put upon the market like corn, wheat, oats, or any other crop. If, however, the experiment involves a considerable handling of individual apples, it may very well be that it will cost more to market the damaged stock than all the income that ccmld be realized; in this case it is clearly the best policy to leave the crop rotting on the ground. In this way some wagon loads of excellent canteloupes have been buried in pits after being cut open and sampled, the only other possible disposal being to give them away to the poor or to the children of the street. Two objections would arise to this: one, the objection of the dealer; the other, and the more serious one, the interference with our regular work. The same principles here sketched apply to the- product of gardens as well as of fields and orchards and the practice is the same; namely, to pursue the course which will achieve the purpose of the department and, when that purpose is achieved, dispose of the product the way that will result in the minimum loss.

LIVE STOCK.

Any institution of our kind must keep flocks and herds both for instruction and for experimentation. These flocks and herds if kept under normal conditions, as they should be, will of course increase. What should be done with the increase? It is criminally foolish to destroy it. In the early days the colleges used to pride themselves upon this produce of their herds, many times holding public sales in order to avoid the criticism of possible favoritism in the disposal to private parties. This, however, resulted in bitter complaints when one of these sales chanced to come but a few days in advance of a similar sale advertised by a private breeder. The result has been that for many years all live stock from institutions of this kind has been disposed of at private sales and upon terms identical with those of the private dealers. Long ago the colleges, forced into a corner at this point, demanded the right to dispose of their products in one way or the other. They have taken the least conspicuous way and public opinion has forced the breeders to acknowledge their rights, so that this point is no longer contended by anybody; indeed, a few institutions have re-established the public sale.

BUTTER.

Dairy herds will produce milk which must be fed, worked up, or poured into, the sewers. As a matter of practice, it is either sold as commercial milk or made into butter. The latter course is necessary wherever the institution offers instruction in butter making, as is the case in most instances, for students cannot be taught butter-making without making butter any more than they can be taught chemistry without laboratories. As the students have increased in number it has been necessary to purchase milk, for no college herd is large enough to produce the amount needed for the large classes of the present day. When the butter is made, the question arises as to its disposal. May it be sold in the community which produces the milk, or must it be secretly disposed of in a distant market in order to avoid criticism? Clearly the college is well within its rights when it insists upon disposing of this butter in such a way as will best serve the purpose of instruction and result in the least loss to the institution, for all courses of this kind are expensive and are bound at the best to result in financial loss. In general, the practice has settled down to disposing of this product in the local markets with more or less complications due to jealousies between individual dealers. A strange trait in human nature comes to the surface at this juncture in that the college product is nearly always held to be inferior to the commercial product and yet, as experience shows, the dealers are extremely anxious to get it.