II. Administrative Files

The records of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Stations in New Brunswick consist of material from the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station and the College Experiment Station. The records date from the period 1889-1962, with the bulk of the material from the period 1916-1933. The records consist of three series: Minutes and Reports, Administrative Files, and Research Notes. The boxes are arranged by series, with folders arranged alphabetically. Correspondence precedes the subject files. The majority of the documents relate to the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. However, at times it is difficult to distinguish between the two stations, since the stations overlapped in responsibilities, research experiments, and staff from the establishment of the College Station in 1887 to the merger of the two Agricultural Experiment Stations in 1945.

In the first series, Minutes and Reports, the two bound volumes of Minutes of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Stations (1918-1934) contain the proceedings of the Council meetings held at the College Farm. These council meetings took place monthly to discuss the business of the station. There existed committees of the Administration, Outside Relations, Building and Grounds, Investigations, Publicity, and a special subcommittee for Ag Field Day held every spring.

The two bound volumes of Reports of Committees of the Agricultural Experiment Station (1918-1933) are the printed reports of individual committees as submitted to the Council. Each report was assigned an "E" number and deals with one committee's discussion of and decision concerning a particular topic. This "E" number would be the cross-reference number that appeared in the Council Minutes. There is one folder of loose items containing the Director's Reports for the College Experiment Station (1904-1912). These are the reports written by Edward B. Voorhees as director of the College Experiment Station, and they deal with the status of the station at that time.

Finally, in the folder of loose items, there are the Minutes of the Cooper Club (1917-1918). The club was housed in the former residence of Drury W. Cooper on George Street in New Brunswick. The club was to provide social rooms and lodging for men interested in agriculture at Rutgers College and the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. In 1918, the house and land were used for the New Jersey College for Women.

The Administrative Files contain correspondence, memoranda, agreements, leases, and miscellaneous items. The correspondence contains the general concerns of the Experiment Stations, as well as letters from State agricultural associations regarding work at the Station. There is substantial amount of incoming correspondence surrounding the 75th anniversary of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station in 1955, and the majority of letters are of a congratulatory nature. There are several agreements between the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station and the Federal Government; for example, the United States Department of Agriculture. Many projects were on the subject of soil conservation and plant research. There are also agreements on mosquito control experiments.

The Research Notes are mainly those of Dr. Byron Halsted's experiments in bean and pea plants. Byron Halsted came to the Agricultural College Experiment Station in 1889. His area of expertise was botany and plant pathology. Much of his work was in plant breeding. The research notes contained here deal with Halsted's work on bean and pea plants at the College Farm from 1916 until his death in 1918.