We are allowing land-grant universities to be reshaped in ways that are alien to the characteristics of institutions we have known. One of the greatest innovative ideas the USA ever had was the land-grant college concept, with the 1862 Morrill, 1887 Hatch and 1914 Smith-Lever Acts. The three functions of teaching, research and extension were long viewed as co-equal in land-grant universities, providing the foundation on which modern agricultural productivity and efficiency were able to flourish. Recently the pendulum has swung away to an emphasis on research, particularly so-called "basic" research. A greater balance must be restored among the three functions. Reasons for the estrangement of the increasingly urban population from the source of its daily bread, for the rapidly accelerating decrease in government support of agricultural research, teaching, and extension, and for the abdication by administrators of their traditional role for gathering support for land-grant colleges, will be explored. As investigators have searched for the "almighty dollar" they have been forced to pander to the short-term objectives of granting agencies or industrial entities rather than being guided by the long-term needs of agriculture. We need a substantial reorientation of effort, to lift up a model of excellence ranging from theoretical research to mission-oriented research to extension and to teaching. Anything less is intellectually dishonest and a betrayal of the great land-grant tradition. We must also counteract the death blow to Hatch funds described in the current proposed federal budget. Unless we speak up, reverse the trend, and convince legislators and policy-makers that the current policies will be disastrous in the long run, the great experiment of the US land-grant concept of interconnected research, teaching, and extension for the public good, so successful in the past, will become nothing more than a fond memory for those who recognize its greatness.