88 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



is doing a grand work. I presume those men and women who 

 graduate there do not all go back on the farm. As I understand 

 it, these agricultural colleges have a four years course in agri- 

 culture, the same as they do in electrical engineering, for instance, 

 or mechanical engineering. There is a four years course in 

 agriculture, where a boy gets a liberal education in literature 

 and the arts and sciences that are particularly applicable to agri- 

 culture, and when he leaves that institution there is a call for 

 him to become a teacher, or a journalist, or an investigator in 

 some other college or experiment station. That is the field of 

 work for which the four years' course at our agricultural colleges 

 seems to fit young men. There are other courses also. For 

 instance, at Orono there is a two years' course, — a boy can go 

 there and stay two years and study practical agriculture, he may 

 go there and stay one year, or he may go there and stay one 

 term, eighteen weeks, and not pay any tuition and not be obliged 

 to be examined for entrance. And then there are short courses, 

 one this winter of six weeks, in dairying, one of three weeks in 

 horticulture, and one of two or three weeks in poultry manage- 

 ment. These are for the farmers as well as the boys. All the 

 expense is for board and transportation. In the Western states 

 the boys and girls are flocking into these colleges. I read an 

 article in Hoard's Dairyman the other day, in which it was stated 

 that in the state of Minnesota 400 students had entered the three 

 years' course in agriculture and 300 had entered the course in 

 dairying. Think of that ! Three hundred students in one state 

 entering the course in dairying! My friend tells me that the 

 sentiment in that college, and in that state, is all in favor of the 

 teaching of agriculture. The majority of the students go there 

 to study agriculture, and go back upon the farm. The same 

 is true in many of the Western states. The sentiment is different 

 here. Who is to blame for it ? I was at the University of Maine 

 yesterday, and I find that there is a class of 189 students who 

 have entered this year. Thirty-one or thirty-two of those are 

 in the law school. The balance were in the collegiate department 

 proper, and I was told that ninety-nine of those men had entered 

 the engineering departments. Now, who determined what 

 department those boys should enter ? They went there and took 

 their choice, and only a few of them took the agricultural course, 

 although I will say that more have commenced the study of 



