LIGHT SOILS. 221 



Ib most of our colleges and high schools our boys think they know more 

 than their fathers, and are sure that they know more than their mothers. They 

 get on stand-up collars and construct poetry and think fanning contemptible. 

 Our college takes a boy and he is not ashamed of agool, honest day's labor. 

 We haven't a dude in the college. When our boys come they are sometimes 

 thin-blooded and round-shouldered, and we put them at work in the military 

 and teach them to get into line, stand up straight and look you in the eye. 



* 

 Some say that we ought to carry the boys farther, and as a necessary condition 



to this have higher terms "of admission, but we think differently. It is a great 

 point in favor of our college that we do receive the graduate of the country 

 district schools. 



Samuel Johnson, the English author, said : " You can make something of a 

 Scotchman if you catch him young." So we want to catch the boys young. 

 Our theory is that Michigan's common schools should be a sutKcient prepara- 

 tory department for our college, and we say if you have a thorough knowledge 

 of geograph}', grammar and arithmetic, reading, writing and spelling, come 

 along and we will go with you the rest of the way. 



5jl "l" "I^ f* 'I* l^ •!* •!» 



They say we don't make farmers. It is not true! More than 50 per cent of 

 our boys have become farmers ; a larger per cent than the law schools make 

 lawyers. 



When in Washington working up the experiment station question, I went 

 into the library of the bureau of educatiou and in the department where the 

 foreign books were. There was a lady there who spoke all those foreign 

 languages and she spoke to me of the foreign experiment stations and of 

 ours at home, and she said tome: "You know the Michigan Agricultural 

 College is at the head; it is the best." I said, " Yes, I know that, for I am the 

 president of it." She was taken back, but I would not spoil the story for 

 relationship sake. I believe in this college, and that the people of the State of 

 Michigan will continue to foster it. 



LJOnT SOILS. 



[This discussion was by accident omitted from the paper whicli called it up.] 



Prest. Will its : The paper suggests that soil may be so poor that it will not 

 take clover. In such a case some outside manure would be necessary as a 

 starter. There are two kinds of sandy soil in this State. In Monroe county 

 the sandy soils will grow clover of themselves. Most of them had water close 

 to the surface, but by means of open ditches this water level was lowered 

 enough to admit of cultivation Germans took up these lands and by manur- 

 ing and clovering have brought them to a high state of fertility. But there 

 were tracts of what they called quicksand that seemed like an open grave for 

 all manures. You might, by manuring, raise a single crop but no more. Now 

 we have in the northern part of this State large tracts of very light soils, and it 

 is a question whether they can ever be made good for anything or not. We 



