220 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



costing nearly 1400,000. We have most complete facilities. Our departments 

 for instruction in the natural sciences excite theadmir-^tion of all corners. Our 

 work is chiefly of applied science. Prof. Johnson talks of agriculture in the 

 class room and carries it out on the farm. 



Prof. Bailey teaches landscape gardening in the class room' and then dis- 

 cusses the effect upon the landscape of the removal or planting of particular 

 trees. He teaches grafting by having the boys do it. We have a greenhouse 

 "with many thousand plants, a botanical garden well stocked with native speci- 

 mens, and a laboratory second to none iu the country for botanical stiidy. 

 Last term we had two special students in botany all the way from Japan. 

 Dr. Beal had them working with microscope and samples of corn smut and so 

 on for seven hours a day. 



In chemistry, we have a special building, with lecture room for one hundred 

 and fifty students and laboratory where the boys practice analysis. 



******** 



In veterinary science, the Legislature gave us money to set us up, and we 

 take a horse to pieces as they take a man to pieces at Ann Arbor. I want to 

 talk a little about th s subject of veterinary. 



Dr. McCosh, President of Princeton, laughingly said of President White, of 

 Cornell, that he had imported from Europe a philosopher and a horse doctor. 

 President White retorted that he had secured the two professional gentlemen 

 referred to, but of the two, the so-called horse doctor was the more valuable. 



I made it one of the conditions of my acceptance of the presidency of the 

 Agriculture College that the State should place veterinary science on an inde- 

 pendent basis at the college. 



When in Washington I was greatly impressed by the magnitude of the animal 

 industry of the country and the prevalence of diseases and the ignorance as to 

 remedies. Brutes cannot tell their symptoms and yet we have got through the 

 iiges with the merest quacks in animal medicine, and so I thought that Michi- 

 gan ought to stir in this matter and see to it that training in veterinary science 

 was developed. liast fall, Missouri lost $100,000 in less than a month's time 

 from pleuro-pneumonia 



Belgium has a veterinary college which receives $30,000 per year and treats 

 7,000 animals gratuitously each year. 



Even the Netherlands give $30,000 a year to a veterinary college — as much 

 as tlie running expenses of our entire college. 



France, with an area but four times that of Michigan, spent last year $200,- 



000 for veterinary science besides $100,000 for paying for animals killed to 

 prevent the spread of contagion. 



Finally, as a matter of instruction, we have our farm. Perhaps some critic 

 sneers and says there is no great farming, that our wheat costs us $25 a bushel. 



1 do not know the method of estimating adopted by such critics, but the cost 

 of our institution is the cost of instruction and it is not a question of what it 

 costs to raise a bushel of wheat. 



We pay our boys for their work 8 cents an hour, and they are able by that 

 means and by winter teaching to do much toward supporting themselves. 

 There are two principal points about the institution : 



1. It is a place of applied science. 



2. It is place of honest labor, where the sentiment is in favor of 

 working with the hands. 



This is the best feature about the institution. 



