COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL | MAY 13, 2021 | 3A
OSU Extension has long, important history with Grovers
By Cindy Weeldreyer
For The Sentinel
The deep roots of today’s
Oregon State University
Extension Service reach
all the way back to the era
of the American Civil War
(1861-1865). It is a story
that begins with Vermont’s
freshman
Congressman
Justin Morrill’s determina-
tion and strategy to advance
a growing national ideal
that educated citizens were
necessary for a successful
democracy.
Morrill believed the fed-
eral government should
establish national agricul-
tural colleges in each state.
His initial attempts to ac-
complish this, beginning
in 1859, were thwarted
by fierce opposition from
southern and western states
who felt the bill impinged
on states’ rights.
In 1862, when he reintro-
duced his bill, many of the
dissenting states had with-
drawn from the union. The
new bill included one signif-
icant addition for a nation
at war: military arts were
added to the curriculum of
agriculture and mechani-
cal arts. President Lincoln
signed the bill into law on
July 2, 1862.
A dozen years earlier,
in 1850, Congress’ offer of
free land via its Donation
Land Claim Act started a
stampede of settlers ready to
relocate to the Oregon Ter-
ritory. On Valentine’s Day in
1859, the population in the
Territory swelled so much
that Oregon became the
33rd state to join the Union.
The year 1862 was a sig-
nificant year for all of Amer-
ica’s western states. Federal
legislation provided lucra-
tive incentives to relocate
here. Two months before
President Lincoln signed
Morrill’s bill, Congress
passed the Homestead Act.
It accelerated the state’s pop-
ulation by granting adult
heads of families 160 acres
of surveyed public land for
a minimal filing fee and five
years of continuous resi-
dence on that land.
The Land Grant College
Act of 1862 provided each
state with 30,000 acres of
federal land for each mem-
ber in their Congressional
delegation. These lands had
to be sold or used for prof-
it with the proceeds used
to establish at least one
college that would prepare
young Americans for prac-
tical careers in engineering,
agriculture, and veterinary
medicine. The college would
also offer classical studies so
members of the working
classes could obtain a liber-
al, practical education.
Most of these new arriv-
als to claim the free land
arrived with knowledge of
agricultural practices they
learned from their fami-
lies in the Midwest and in
Europe. They quickly dis-
covered it was not the most
effective ways of growing
things here.
So, the timing was great
for them to have Oregon
Agricultural College open
its doors in Corvallis, in
1868, with a mission to re-
search practical solutions to
real problems. OAC faculty
spent part of their time trav-
eling by horseback or train
to organize farmers’ insti-
tutes and to deliver lectures
to far-flung communities.
Their topics aimed to
improve rural life, from
food safety and family nu-
trition to animal husband-
ry and pest management.
Often hundreds of people
flocked to these education-
al demonstrations designed
to improve their knowledge
and, subsequently, their
quality of life.
The national vision began
with the Morrill Act and
expanded with the Hatch
Act of 1887, which estab-
lished a national network
of agricultural experiment
stations, and the Smith-Le-
ver Act of 1914, which cre-
ated an extension service at
each land-grant university.
Together, these three feder-
al laws established the three
cornerstones of the land-
grant mission: education,
research, and extension.
Today there are a total
of  112 land grant institu-
tions, of which 19 are histor-
ically black and 33 are tribal.
Oregon often exports its
good ideas to the rest of
America. This was true with
its historic 1971 bottle bill to
better protect the environ-
ment and it was true in the
1920’s, too.
Back then, OAC orga-
nized the first of a series
of statewide economic
conferences, followed by
county-based conferences,
to define the direction of
Extension education and
ensure it would be valuable
to those receiving it. The
Extension Service contin-
ued to sponsor these confer-
ences throughout the 20th
century to identify com-
munity needs. This state
strategy became the model
for Extension programming
across the nation.
Oregon was also the
first state to create Exten-
sion  4-H  clubs for urban
kids, and in 1918, clubs in
the City of Portland con-
verted part of their school
grounds to Victory Gar-
dens.
Extension agents by na-
ture are intrepid, commu-
nity service-driven indi-
viduals, who love learning
new things and sharing
their knowledge with oth-
ers. From the beginning of
its existence, an agent was
assigned to each county to
develop programs that met
local needs. To accomplish
that, OAC faculty brought
research-based knowledge
to communities far from
campus. They creatively
used whatever means they
had to reach out to Orego-
nians: horses and buggies,
steam trains, boats, and mo-
bile classroom trailers.
In 1925, the College’s
Corvallis-based radio sta-
tion, KOAC, signed on the
air with enough broadcast-
ing power to cover the entire
state. The OAC Extension
Director of Information,
Wallace Kadderly, served as
the station’s first program
director and announcer. He
said at the time, “Radio eras-
es city limits and state lines,
and causes to disappear
the boundaries of nations,
creeds, and partisanship.” 
KOAC’s slogan was
“Science for Service,” and
its purpose was to make
OAC’s resources more fully
available to the state. The
station’s programming rev-
olutionized Extension’s edu-
cational outreach. In its first
year of operation, Kadder-
ly selected 313 lectures to
broadcast that had practical
application in the home,
on the farm, or in business.
This public service was in-
valuable to those trying to
survive through The Great
Depression in the 1930’s
and two world wars.
Before YouTube and on-
line learning, Oregonians
learned new things by lis-
tening to KOAC and taking
correspondence
courses.
The “Oregon School of the
Air” broadcast radio-based
high-school courses on top-
ics from agricultural engi-
neering to shorthand. Radio
farm reports were especially
popular.
Following World War II,
Extension ventured into
television. Its weekly pro-
gram, “Oregon at Work”,
chronicled the people and
innovations in Oregon agri-
culture and business. Today,
KOAC is the flagship of a
network of radio and tele-
vision stations we know as
Oregon Public Broadcast-
ing.
Lane County’s Extension
Office has been around
since 1911. County staff and
local volunteers help home-
owners, farmers, ranchers,
woodland owners, business
people, families, and indi-
viduals of all ages access
knowledge and develop
skills. OSU Faculty mem-
bers are stationed in county
offices, only if local funding
is available for programs
and clerical support, office
space and equipment, and
travel and training associat-
ed with their duties.
The Eugene Extension
Office gets includes 42-per-
cent of its annual budget
from Lane County and the
rest comes from a modest
five-year property tax levy,
which is on the May 18 elec-
tion ballot.
The following programs
offered locally are:
• 4-H Youth Develop-
ment teaches leadership, life
skill development and the
value of community service
through hands-on educa-
tion and youth/adult learn-
ing partnerships.
• Food Preservation &
Safety teaches workshop
participants how to can,
freeze, dehydrate and pick-
le foods, as well as food
handling and cooking tech-
niques.
• Home Horticulture edu-
cates workshop participants
in pest and disease manage-
ment, pruning, composting,
sustainable landscaping, ac-
cessible gardening, school
gardens, and community
gardens.
• Nutrition Education
promotes healthy eating
and wellness education for
youth and adults via school
programs, pantry programs,
and helping low-income in-
dividuals and families learn
how to maximize their food
budgets to prepare healthy
meals.
• Commercial Horticul-
ture increases knowledge
of tree fruits, nuts, berries,
field crops, and integrated
pest management.
• Livestock & Forages pro-
motes greater success with
animal and feed production,
integrated pest management
and marketing.
• Small Farms teaches
how to do niche crop pro-
duction and marketing,
farm-to-consumer
net-
working, backyard farming
and organic agriculture.
• Forestry & Natural Re-
sources informs property
owners about timber and
non-timber forest products,
pest and disease manage-
ment, forest management,
reforestation, road manage-
ment, watershed sustain-
ability, and wildfire resil-
ience.
• Sea Grant focuses on
marine resource issues,
coastal community issues,
community development,
and capacity.
For 153 years, this much
loved statewide educational
system has developed rele-
vant and credible programs
to respond to community
needs as they’ve changed
from one generation to the
next. Its response to those
changing needs has always
been backed by university
research and information.
Lane County Master
Gardener Leigh Rieder de-
scribes the importance of
OSU’s Extension Service as
“a public work that increas-
es access to University ed-
ucation.” She adds, “Exten-
sion agents and hundreds of
trained volunteers literally
extend research-based in-
formation from OSU to all
Oregonians, regardless of
their socioeconomic status.”
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