24 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



was prese.itcd to the Legislature of 1853, and while it was favorably received, it 

 was not acted upon. In the meantime the State Board of Education had caused 

 to be taught at the Normal school the elements of scientihc agriculture, and 

 the regents of the University had organized an agricultural school as part of 

 the scientifK! course then recently adopted, and had anuouuced a free course of 

 lectures in tiie University upon agricultural science. The friends of both insti- 

 tutions songlit to have the proposed "agricultural school " made a brancli of 

 the institution whose interests they sought to further. The discussion became 

 quite animated and general all over the State, so that, when tlie executive com- 

 mittee of the State Agricultural Society met Dec. 12, 1853, the subject formed 

 aprotninent topic for action. After full discussion, on motion of Mr. Bartlett 

 of Monroe, it was resolved "That an Agricultural College should be separate 

 from any other institution," an>I a committee was to urge action upon the Legis- 

 lature about to convene. 



The result was that the Legislature by act of Feb. 12, 1855, established this 

 college, providing that it should be located within ten miles of Lansing, the 

 Bite to be on a farm of not less than 500 acres, to be selected subject to the 

 approval of the State Board of Education, by the president and executive com- 

 mittee of the State Agricultural Society. The present site, then a virgin wilder- 

 ness, three miles east of the city of Lansing, was, June 16, 1855, selected, and 

 May 13, 1857, on this very spot, as near as may be, the new enterprise was 

 dedicated. 



It is instructive to read the literature, the addresses, and the plans of that 

 time: to follow the hopes and great expectations, not fully realized as yet, the 

 intelligent appreciation of the necessity for scientific agriculture, and the faith 

 that great results would follow their labors. Gov. Kinsley S. Bingham said: 

 "One of the highest objects to be attained by the establishment of an Agricul- 

 tural college is to educate and dignify the character of labor." "A new era is 

 dawning upon the vision of the farmer — a new light is illuminating his path, 

 and a new interest and new pleasures are urging him on to improvement. Uis 

 iutellect comes to the aid of his hands, and he appreciates the full dignity of 

 liis chosen pursuit." 



So Avitli prayer and prophecy they laid the foundntions of this institution. 

 From the beginnino- it had two difiiculties to contend with. The first, the 

 unfortunate selection of the site so far as immediate results were concerned. 

 The second the unsettled policy for years as to its independent status, or rather 

 the constant demand that it should be made the adjunct of some existing 

 institution, which, while it was not strong enough to accomplish its removal, to 

 a certain extent crippled its efficiency and sharpened criticism. 



It was a pioneer institution in the literal sense; not only was it the first of 

 its kind, but it began at the stump, so to speak. The first'tools needed were 

 an ax to fella tree and a spade to dig a well. It has gone through all the stages 

 of pioneer life; it has had its corduroy roads, its chills and fevers, chills pre- 

 dominating; it was almost a generation "getting out of the woods;" so that its 

 primal energies were in a sense wasted in subduing a farm, in taking a large 

 tract of land in a state of nature and fitting it to become a "model farm"instead 

 of taking improved land all ready for experiment. The result was that many 

 of tlie promoters of the enterprise became impatient, then cool, and finally 

 opposed to it. Tliey could not wait. There was not much science, of course, 

 needed in clearing land, and the critics looked in vain, as they said, for results, 

 except financial ones, on the wrong side of the ledger. Their clamor brought 

 on the stump puller before nature had had time to make stump pulling eco- 



