Newspaper clippings and magazine articles on the need for a college of agriculture in New York State, and on the founding of the New York State College of Agriculture, including statements made about it by Liberty Hyde Bailey. Some of the clippings are contained in a scrapbook. Newspapers and periodicals represented include the Ithaca daily journal, American agriculturist, Cornell alumni news, and Cornell daily sun.

Correspondence, diaries, accounts, and manuscript articles and reports, pertaining chiefly to Brill's work in Wuchang, China, as head of the Hupeh Agricultural College and Experimental Farm and as a scientific explorer for the United States Department of Agriculture (1897-1901) and later in a similar capacity with the Department of Public Instruction on the Philippine Islands (1901-1902).