DEPARTMENT REPORTS. 



REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT. 



To tlie Honorable State Board of Agriculture: 



I herewith submit my report as president for the year ending June 

 30, 1906. 



The constitution of the State of Michigan, as revised in the year 

 1850, made provision for the establishing of a State Agricultural Col- 

 lege. This provision in the state constitution was carried into effect 

 by the state legislature in 1855. The sum of .^56,320 resulting from 

 the sales of salt-spring and swamp land grants was set apart by the 

 legislature to be used in the purchase of a farm and the erection of 

 buildings. A tract of 676 acres of uncleared land, located three miles 

 east of the state capital, was purchased, four brick residences, a barn, 

 a dormitory and a recitation building were erected, and the college 

 was opened for students with appropriate exercises on May 13, 1857. 



By the act of 1855 the college was placed in control of the State 

 Board of Education. The State Board of Agriculture was created and 

 placed in charge of the college by the legislature in 1861. This board 

 consisted of six members appointed by the governor and confirmed 

 by the senate. The appointments were so arranged that two members 

 retire each two years. The legislature of 1905 added one member to 

 the board. This member is appointed in the same manner and for the 

 same length of term as the other members, but must be a resident of 

 the ^'northern peninsula" of the state. The governor of the state and 

 the president of the college are ex officio members of the board. 



In 1862 congress appropriated land for the maintenance by the sev- 

 eral states of "Colleges of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts." The 

 state of Michigan by accepting this act came into the possession of 

 210,000 acres of land. Happily, the provision of the congressional act, 

 commonly termed the "Morrill Act," as to the type of education .to be 

 fostered and maintained, coincided almost identically, with the excep- 

 tion of mechanic arts, with the course of instruction as already gi^en 

 in the Michigan Agricultural College. The character of the institution 

 has become more firmly fixed by the provisions of the various acts of 

 congress. The Morrill act states that: 



"The leading objects shall be, without excluding other scientific and 

 classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches 

 of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such 

 manner as the legislatures of the states may respectively^ prescribe, in 

 order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial 

 classes in the several pursuits and professions of life." 



The act of 1887, called the Hatch act, appropriates |15,000 annually 

 for each experiment station, and states that it is— 



