In 1893, the Montana legislature endorsed the Federal Hatch
Act of 1887, establishing the Montana Agricultural Experiment
Station. That year, four men were hired as the agricultural
teaching faculty at the new State College of Agriculture and
Mechanical Arts. In addition to classroom teaching they were
expected to carry out the mission of the Agricultural Experiment
Station which was:
to aid in acquiring and diffusing among the people of the
State of Montana useful and practical information on subjects
connected with Agriculture, and promote scientific investigations
and experiments respecting the principles and applications
of agriculture science.
They
initiated experiments, imported new plants for evaluation
under Montana conditions and disseminated information to Montana
farmers and ranchers on the range, farmers in the river valleys,
where small irrigation projects were being developed, and
a few dry-land farmers on the plains.
Today,
110 years later, the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station
has grown from the original four to a teaching and research
faculty of over 100. These faculty members are housed in seven
departments: Agriculture Economics and Economics, Animal and
Range Sciences, Entomology, Land Resources and Environmental
Sciences, Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology, Research Centers
of which there are seven located around the state, and Veterinary
Molecular Biology. All of these departments conduct research
on a wide range of topics to meet the mission of MAES. The
faculty and research projects have grown from Sod-Busting
to Satellites but the mission is the same with the goal to
keep Montanas agriculture and related industries economically
viable and competitive as we move into the 21st century. Data
collection has gone from collection, tabulation, and analysis
by hand to the latest high speed computer technology with
instant delivery. Agriculture and the Montana Agricultural
Experiment Station has moved from the horse and buggy age
to the computer age.
The most
visible presence of the MAES in the State is the seven Agricultural
Research Centers.
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