The Delta Branch Experiment Station was founded as a direct result of the realization there was much to be learned about crop production to meet the ever-changing needs of the Mississippi Delta producers. In 1904, the Mississippi Legislature approved Senate Bill #22 authorizing Mississippi A&M College to establish a branch agricultural experiment station “at some point in the state in what is known as the Yazoo and Mississippi Delta, or in some county adjoining said Delta at a point where experiments with the soil of the hills as well as the Delta can be made.” The bill appropriated $3,000 for operations the first year, provided the land was donated. Later that year, a group of Delta farmers, faced with many problems and issues in agriculture, realized the importance of further research to discover new information about crops, soils, and animal production in the Delta. Under the leadership of Alfred Holt Stone, they pooled together $15,000 and purchased 200 acres of rich Deer Creek land, which was then considered to be a “worn-out” plantation, for the purpose of developing an experiment station.
-100 Years of Agricultural Research, The Delta Branch Experiment Station (2004)