Los Banos Rotary Club History
Tells Plans For Valley Ag. School

James Mayer, public relations director for the Producers Cotton Oil Co., Fresno, speaking at the Rotary Club luncheon Tuesday noon of last week, told of plans for the establishment of an agricultural college at Fresno, and urged the people of this community to join in the campaign for its foundation.

The San Joaquin valley, which includes more than six and a half million acres of the richest, most highly cultivated agricultural land in the United States, is the only area of similar size and farming value, Mayer emphasized, that does not have an agricultural college. There are three general areas in California which have adequate facilities for training in vocational agriculture at the college level. They are the University of California, San Luis Polytechnic Institute, and University of Southern California, with departments at Los Angeles and Riverside.

Mayer pointed out that the kind of training and experience San Joaquin valley farm boys need, in order to take their places as the farm leaders of the next generation can be obtained only on the farm lands of the San Joaquin valley.
Such training would be possible with establishment of an agricultural college at Fresno, where farm and laboratory facilities could be used to combine actual farm experience in all of the important specialized fields of valley agriculture with up-to-date classroom instruction by successful farmers and technicians.

The speaker also pointed out that this would not be a college exclusively for the purpose of conferring glorified degrees but that anyone who wanted the instruction would be admitted to the courses in this agricultural training institution.

Mayer stated that such a college could be started only by an endowment fund of at least $500,000, but once underway, the state would assume the administrative expenses. A third of this fund has already been subscribed and a campaign to raise the remainder will get underway soon after the first of the year.

It is anticipated, Mayer concluded, that at least a thousand agriculture students would enroll in the school the opening year of which the great majority would be students drawn almost entirely from the six San Joaquin valley counties. On completion of their agricultural schooling they would almost invariably return to their homes as farm owners, managers, operators, superintendents, tenants, or as skilled technicians in the many valley industries related to farming.

December 17, 1946

 

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