June 18, 2012

As Land-Grant Law Turns 150, Students Crowd Into Agriculture Colleges

As Land-Grant Law Turns 150, Students Crowd Into Agriculture Colleges 1

Joey Pulone for The Chronicle

Marissa Keys, an undergraduate in agroecology at Pennsylvania State U., takes soil samples in a field of young corn. She is studying ways to make crops more sustainable.

By Lawrence Biemiller

State College, Pa.

In the front hall of the American Gothic cottage that Justin Morrill built in Strafford, Vt., hangs his meticulous, hand-drawn plan for its gardens and orchards. It dates to the late 1840s. Morrill, a blacksmith's son who never attended college, had enjoyed a successful career as a merchant, and he retired to his hometown at 38 to marry and indulge his passion for horticulture on a 50-acre hillside farm. He planned to try growing a wide variety of plants and trees, in addition to raising