THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 217 



steadily abstracted from old Virginia's soil with no equivalent return, and now 

 she is left in her desolation. 



Where has gone the value of the New England farms? It takes value to 

 raise men, and those farms have raised men. It takes the whole substance 

 of an acre of good land and the labor of cultivating it to make a man, and 

 when he goes west he takes the good of that acre with him. You remember 

 the traditional fertility of the Genesee Valley, and yet you have seen Central 

 New York lose its hold as a wheat country. What did they do to restore 

 it? They put in clover and did restore it for a time, but now it is getting 

 clover sick, and now what? 



Here in Michigan we are encountering the same problems, but scientific 

 agriculture is coming to the rescue and building up our farms. Parts of 

 New Jersey twenty years ago wouldn't raise wheat or white beans; now they 

 raise all crops. They have learned how to take care of their land. 



In 1844, Liebig issued his work on Agricultural Chemistry, and in twenty 

 years from that time Germany had fifty-five institutions like our Agricul- 

 tural College, and not only was this growing sterility stopped, but Germany 

 now raises twice as much wheat per acre as before Liebig's work was written. 

 Germany raised beets. The crop began to fail. Scientific agriculture told 

 what remedy to apply and to-day they raise beets as well as ever. 



It is such results that follow from the so-called impracticable work that is 

 done in the Agricultural Colleges.' It may be said that there is but little 

 chance for scientific agriculture in clearinw land or in working among 

 stumps, but man's work is in improving what he finds and if he attempts this 

 unintelligently he may do more harm than good. May he not in draining 

 do more harm by killing the native timber than he does good by the drain- 

 age? There are now vast areas of Michigan that are valuable only for their 

 timber and we must, for that part of the State, study the problem whether 

 when stripped of their timber such lands may in any way be made of agri- 

 cultural value. 



Scientific agriculture is no mere phrase. On virgin soils with their full 

 original strength it may do to scolf at scientific agriculture, but the time 

 comes when this original capital is spent. If you take twenty-five bushels of 

 wheat from your land, do you leave it as good as it was? What do we now 

 with the products of our land? We put them into our sewers, and, lest they 

 should by any chance get back to the land, we flush these sewers and flood 

 them all into the sea. 



******** 



In 1882, when it was determined that my usefulness in Congress had 

 been impaired so that it was not expedient to return me, I came home 

 with the full purpose of re-entering upon the work of my profession, when 

 much to my surprise, I was invited by the Board of Eiiucation to take charge 

 of the Normal School, and I finally concluded to do so and was much grati- 

 fied by the cordial eudorsement which my appointment received. Once in the 

 work, I became absorbed and interested, and giving up my law partnership, 

 devoted myself to the cause of education. But I had hardly more tliau begun 

 to see the fruits of my new undertaking, when, a year ago last September I met 

 a gentleman in. Detroit, a member of tlie vState Board of Agriculture, who pro- 

 posed to me that I should become the President of the Agricultural College. 

 This was again a new thing to me and I looked through the literature of the sub- 

 ject and found that the Michigan Agricultural College stood head and shoulders 

 28 



