History
Founded in agriculture, rooted in life.
Providing a foundation for new knowledge and experimentation.
Founded in 1890, the Arizona Experiment Station's history is inextricably linked to that of the University of Arizona. From its early years to today, our Experiment Station network serves as a testbed for new ideas in support of local communities and the state's historic and emerging industries.
From modest roots to agricultural boom
In September of 1900, Robert H. Forbes, the Director of the Arizona Experiment Station, unwrapped a package from a farmer in Cochise County. The parcel was accompanied by a note, which read: "I have mailed you a package worm or insect in three sizes which are eating all the leaves of my grape vines." The farmer begged for information on how to eradicate the pest, which stood to devastate his crop and livelihood.
The plea was not unlike hundreds of others Forbes and his staff received yearly. For a decade, the Arizona Experiment Station had provided important scientific research and knowledge to support the territory's growing agricultural community.
Newcomers flooded to the Southwest looking for new opportunities, and many came from vastly different climates, where rains and soils were far more abundant. They found themselves in a new environment, unequipped for the challenges of the desert, and many turned to the young agency for advice. Through its early experimentation in irrigation, soils and potential commodity crops, the Arizona Experiment Station provided the foundation of understanding for arid-land agriculture, an industry that delivers roughly $23.3 billion in economic impact to Arizona today.
The founding pillars of Arizona's university
The University of Arizona was founded in 1885 and while the Morrill Act established land-grant universities' educational role, federal legislators recognized that agricultural research was also essential to position the United States within an emerging global economy. The Hatch Act of 1887 provided funding for each state to establish agricultural experiment stations to address America’s need for a publicly-funded, interconnected network of research resources.
A photograph of the University of Arizona, dated 1891, shows the main building and agricultural fields in the foreground. The campus was an early experimentation ground. Early test crops included cowpeas or black-eyed peas, canaigre or "wild rhubarb," and cacti - nearly 100 species of cacti were planted by the Experiment Station and many varieties demonstrated possible economic value, both for food for humans and feed for cattle during times of drought.
University of Arizona Special Collections
The provisions of the Hatch Act proved an enticing opportunity for the University of Arizona's regents. Although the state's university was authorized in 1885, it had by that time received only token appropriations from the territorial legislature and four years later, its main building still stood unfinished. With additional federal funding, the regents saw they may finally finish construction and hire a research staff who could also serve as the university's initial faculty.
Funding for the Experiment Station came in the summer of 1890, and the University of Arizona hired its first employee, Frank Gulley, who was appointed professor of agriculture and Director of the Experiment Station. Gulley pushed construction on the university's two-story red brick building forward and established the Experiment Station headquarters - which included a well-equipped laboratory - in several rooms on the lower floor.
Gulley made the Experiment Station the first functioning unit of the university. The agency would serve a two-fold purpose: conducting scientific investigations on agricultural subjects and then disseminating the results to the territory's agricultural community.
A promise to deliver work of "the greatest practical value"
The campus became an early experimental ground, with a well drilled to support the university's building and a 15-acre research plot, where cowpeas - also known as black-eyed peas - were sowed as the first test crop. Over time, the campus station would grow to include a forty-acre tract, a nursery and a greenhouse, from which plants were to be distributed to future Experiment Station branches across the region.
In the fall of 1890, Gulley traveled extensively, investigating soils, water and other resources across the territory. He believed additional experimental branches should be developed among varying soil and water conditions in order to provide the most comprehensive baseline of understanding, and that they should be positioned near established farming communities and railroads to allow farmers to visit and learn from their work. He also used these expeditions to speak directly with the territory's growers to identify crops and issues of interest - a practice that would become emblematic of the spirit of Experiment Station and later Cooperative Extension work throughout Arizona's history.
Faculty groups in mining and agricultural science gather on the steps of the University of Arizona's main building in 1892. Frank Gulley, professor of agriculture and director of the Experiment Station, can be seen near the upper left corner holding a western cowboy hat.
University of Arizona Special Collections
By December of 1890, Gulley identified the first locations for Experiment Station branches: two in the Salt River Valley near the towns of Phoenix and Tempe, and a third near Yuma and the Gila River. He then turned to staffing the operation, hiring a chemist, horticulturist, botanist, entomologist and engineer. The professional research staff pulled double duty in the university's early years, performing both teaching and scientific experimentation.
Given the heavy load, research moved slowly, but early work focused on irrigation studies, including analyses of water quality and operations of the Salt River canal systems. Soil and native grasses were another major focus, as was the development of potential fruit crops, with a particular interest in Middle Eastern date palms.
The Experiment Station's research was published as bulletins that were distributed free of charge to anyone who requested them and in its first publication, the agency outlined a vision of service and the promise to deliver work of "the greatest practical value."
Over the next several years, the Experiment Station would bring together farmers, fruit producers and stock growers through annual meetings that encouraged the widely scattered agricultural community to exchange ideas and help identify common problems.
A renewed focus on stewardship and regenerative practices
Robert H. Forbes took the reins of the Experiment Station in 1899, five years after arriving at Tucson's dusty train station and traversing a barbed wire fence to catch his first glimpse of the university. Like his predecessors, Forbes traveled extensively by horseback into remote areas of the territory, where time and again he saw settlers imposing agricultural techniques developed in much wetter climates.
"Costly experience in Arizona has demonstrated the futility of trying to make Nature recognize the motives of human expediency," Forbes wrote in his annual report of 1900.
Forbes was convinced the new settlers must learn to adapt to their new environment and he channeled Experiment Station research into two primary areas: experimentation with plants from countries with similar climates, and extensive studies on plant varieties native to the desert Southwest.
A photo dated 1912 shows the alfalfa farming plots at the Phoenix Farm, where some of the first research focused on finding supplementary feedstuffs, such as alfalfa and sorghum, that ranchers could grow and feed their cattle during times of drought. In the distance, you can also see the date palm orchard, inspired by early investigations by the Experiment Station peers in California.
University of Arizona Special Collections
Intrigued by earlier experiments and preliminary studies by California agricultural stations, the date palm drew the interest and imagination of Arizona staff, and through a cooperative agreement with the Department of Agriculture, 400 trees of different species were imported and planted at branch stations across the territory - including the University of Arizona campus.
Native plants were also the subject of investigation, with Forbes completing a thorough study on the possible commercialization of mesquite - for which he noted its greatest value lay in protecting important watersheds. Existing mesquite forests should under no circumstances be destroyed, he wrote. Cacti, too, proved of interest in both human food and forage for cattle, with 100 species planted on the university's campus by the early 20th century.
The increasingly depleted rangelands and natural forage for cattle had been a problem for many years. The waning decades of the 1800s saw exponential growth in Arizona's cattle population. By 1890, cattle outnumbered the human population of the Arizona territory by a factor of 10 to one, according to census and tax assessment records. The Arizona Territory experienced one of the most severe periods of drought on record between 1890 and 1893, resulting in the loss of an estimated 50 to 75% of cattle herds. The "cattle crash" would become emblematic of a tragedy of the commons. Open or free-range grazing lands were, at the time, unassigned and unfenced. The science of ecology and principles of rangeland management were still emerging at the time and had not been broadly applied to desert ecosystems.
Forbes was profoundly influenced by what he saw on the ground, and as visionaries in the East sought to manage the natural resources within forests, he saw a need for a similar approach in the ranges of the West. He sought to learn how to recover rangelands and how to support the territory's cattle industry with an understanding of range dynamics and capacity, presenting his proposal for a large experimental range reserve at the annual American Forestry Association meeting in 1901.
The idea caught the attention of Gifford Pinchot, head of the USDA's Bureau of Forestry and the "father" of the U.S. Forest Service. The two would take the idea to Theodore Roosevelt, who had recently ascended to the presidency following the assassination of William McKinley. In what would be one of his first presidential proclamations, the Santa Rita Experimental Range was born as part of the Santa Rita Forest Reserve.
On the Santa Rita, range specialists and botanists set to work investigating techniques for restoration and re-vegetation, in collaboration with stock growers. They began mapping vegetation transects and documenting ecological renewal through repeat photography - practices which are still maintained today and provide the longest publicly-available ecological datasets in the world. Their work was foundational to the field of rangeland management and helped to develop the concept of regenerative agriculture and, more specifically, rotational grazing.
Rural education and the birth of Extension
As the university found its footing and acquired its own faculty for teaching, Experiment Station scientists could devote more time to research, launching investigations into cotton, citrus, alfalfa and sorghum, as well as broader dry farming experiments in McNeal, Prescott and Snowflake.
A photo of the Demonstration Train sponsored by the University of Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station dated December of 1912 and taken by R.H. Forbes. An Experiment Station scientist can be seen on the platform alongside a cow. These traveling exhibits bought the latest technologies in agriculture and farming to rural communities in Arizona.
University of Arizona Special Collections
Experiment Station staff could also spend more time disseminating knowledge to Arizona's agricultural community, hosting what were then called Farmer's Institutes across the territory. In these roadshows, station staff held lectures and demonstrated new ideas about crop planting, culling wheat, dairy practices and the building and maintenance of country roads. By 1908, station staff were providing 56 institutes in 22 locations across Arizona. The Farmer's Institutes were received with great enthusiasm and the territorial legislature soon provided specific appropriations for Experiment Station extension work.
In the fall of 1912, the Experiment Station launched a new program using the railroad for traveling exhibits. Arizona rail providers - including the Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, El Paso and Southwestern railroads - agreed to carry several exhibit cars and staff members free of charge, dropping them off at sidings in agricultural communities. What become known as the Demonstration Trains would often offer exhibits on farm products and machinery, a collection of common insect pests, explanations of alfalfa and other crop experiments, materials illustrating pump irrigation and live animal shows.
The Smith-Lever Act of 1914 created the third pillar of Arizona's land-grant university - the national Cooperative Extension Service. The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension took up the mantle of these early rural education programs and developed additional outreach in home economics, tribal extension and 4-H youth development.
Together, the College of Agriculture, Arizona Experiment Station, and Cooperative Extension provided the foundation for Arizona's agricultural industry. These three pillars comprise what is colloquially referred to as the Land Grant Division - formally, the Division of Agriculture, Life, Environmental & Veterinary Sciences, and Cooperative Extension.
Today, the Arizona Experiment Station continues to help grow new knowledge and technologies to support the state's historic and emerging industries, providing best-in-class research infrastructure across 11 experimental branches throughout the state.
Want to learn more?
The above was largely informed by Virginia Rice's The Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station: A History to 1917, as well as early Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletins and annual reports available through the University of Arizona Campus Repository.