When The Pennsylvania State University received its charter in 1855, its founders intended it to be an institution for promoting scientific agriculture. Although the Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862 broadened the University's curriculum to include other subjects, agriculture was not neglected. This book chronicles how Penn State went on to become a vital force in making agriculture more efficient not only in Pennsylvania but nationally and overseas as well.

Into this institutional history is woven the evolution of Pennsylvania's agriculture. Bezilla's work demonstrates how men and women of science were able to gain the confidence of practical agriculturalists, and how the realities of practical agriculture shaped work in the laboratory and classroom. This history is also the story people -- figures such as Whitman Jordan, who conducted landmark experiments in soil fertility; Milton McDowell, who battled the government and the trustees of his own university to preserve an independent extension service; and Elizabeth Meek, who broke under the strain of being the first woman to enter the male domain of the agricultural faculty. This analytical, forthright study expands our knowledge of land-grant education and is an important contribution to the history of Pennsylvania agriculture.