188 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the stiulent must not, in acquiring a scientific education, lose either the ability 

 or the disposition to labor on the farm. If tlic farmers, tlien, are to be edu- 

 cated, they must be educated on the farm itself." 



But this habit of labor and willingness to labor is not enough of itself to 

 determine a student to select agriculture as his vocation. Home circumstances 

 will often do it, as they will also determine other students to other pursuits. 

 Something more is needed to give farming a fair chance with other callings 

 in its claims upon the young. Will the rendering of home more pleasant by 

 better gardens, fruits, and flowers, by shade trees and other objects gratifying 

 to the taste, keep young men upon the farm? These things will have their 

 influence no doubt, but on the whole the youth of our country are too noble to 

 look for mere ease and enjoyment in their chosen vocation. They want in a 

 business that scope and necessity for intellectual labor that shall give it dignity 

 in their own eyes and in that of community. And when they see that agricul- 

 ture has become an intellectual business, that it has sure foundations in science, 

 and gives full exercise to college education and discipline, they will feel it to 

 be, as it is, worthy their highest ambition, and the business will then, in return 

 for honor bestowed, confer honor, not only on the educated, but upon the 

 whole mass of agriculturists who shall share in the dignity that it enjoys. 



Statistics show that less than one and one-half per cent of the graduates of 

 literary colleges go to farming, and that a very large per cent of the graduates 

 of agricultural colleges choose agriculture for a business. Some thirty per 

 cent of the graduates of the Agricultural College of Massachusetts are farm- 

 ers, and in our own State more than fifty per cent are either farmers or stu- 

 dents or teachers of agriculture. 



EXPERIMEXTS AND OTHER WORK OF THE HORTICULTURAL 



DEPARTMENT. 



BY PEOF. AV. J. BEAL. 

 [Delivered at Rockford, Big Rapids, and Mason.] 



At the close of the last College year, September 1st, I was unable to report 

 the results of some experiments which were then incomplete. I now proceed, 

 somewhat at random, to speak of experiments and work of the department for 

 the past year. 



NOTES OF SOME TIMBER TREES IN THE ARBORETUM. 



At the Agricultural College is a small arboretum of over two acres, which 

 cootains not far from two hundred and seventy-five species of trees and shrubs, 

 all of which are labeled and the plat recorded in a book for the purpose. At 

 this time I merely wish to speak of some of the most prominent trees which we 

 have planted for timber. The oldest of these were started or transplanted to 

 this place in the fall of 1875. The soil is sandy loam and not what one would 

 call strong. It is naturally well drained. An old road once cut the lot in 

 two pieces. At this place the land has been graded down. There is a marked 

 inferiority in the appearance of the trees growing on this ridge where the top 



