AMES  , a

city of Story county, Iowa, U.S.A., about 35 M . N. of Des Moines, at the intersection of two lines of the Chicago & North-Western railway . Pop . (189o) 1276; (1900) 2422; (1910 U . S. census) 4223 . The city is the seat of the state college of agriculture and mechanic arts; this institution, opened in 1869, has for its use about 1175 acres of land, on which the state has erected, at a cost of $1,200,000, thirty-two college buildings, besides dwelling-houses and buildings for farm purposes . On the college campus are beautiful groves containing several hundred varieties of trees, and in a central position stands a campanile with excellent chimes . The college offers four-year courses in agronomy, animal husbandry, dairying, domestic economy, general science, veterinary medicine, and civil, mechanical, electrical and mining engineering . In 1909-1910 it had an enrollment of 2631 students (including 796 in the winter short course) and a library of 23,000 volumes . The cost of instruction and experimentation is met by the income from national grants (under the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1882) and by state appropriations . Ames has a Carnegie library, and owns and operates its electric-lighting plant and waterworks . It was laid out as a town in 1864 and was named in honour of Oakes Ames, at the time one of the proprietors of the Cedar Rapids & Missouri River railway (now part of the Chicago & North-Western); five years later it was incorporated .