60 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 



gislature, after repeated denials from their predecessors, passed 

 the first act making pecuniary appropriation for the establishment 

 of an Agricultural College — a legislative act which, I have the 

 fullest confidence, each individual member will hereafter look 

 back upon with as much satisfaction as upon any public act of 

 his life. 



The act provides for loaning, from the surplus of the United 

 States Deposit Fund, forty thousand dollars for twenty-one years, 

 without interest, to be expended in the purchase of a farm in 

 Seneca county of not less than 300 acres, and for the erection of 

 college buildings thereon, provided the like sum of forty thou- 

 sand dollars should bo obtained by private subscription for the 

 same purpose, and its payment secured to the satisfaction of the 

 Comptroller, and the land so purchased to be mortgaged to the 

 State, to secure the payment of the forty thousand dollars loaned. 

 This appropriation is much less than it should have been, but it 

 enables the trustees to make a beginning. 



The trustees met at Ovid in June last, and filled some vacan- 

 cies in their Board, and made some examinations with a view to 

 the selection of a farm, and adjourned to the first week in Sep- 

 tember. They met in September in full board : three groups of 

 farms were offered for their use, one at the east end of the town 

 of Ovid, on Cayuga Lake, and two adjoining the village of Ovid. 

 After a careful examination of them, and after hearing the sug- 

 gestions of the advocates for each, they selected one embracing 

 about 680 acres of land (to be purchased when their means will 

 permit,) bounded at its east end by the village of Ovid, west by 

 Seneca Lake, and north by the road leading from the village to 

 the lake — from w^hich road the whole farm can be seen. It is 

 about half a mile wide upon the lake, and over tw^o miles in 

 length between the lake and village. The land is of good quality, 

 well adapted to the growth of wheat or any other crops grown 

 in the State, as well as to fruit. It is well watered; several hun- 

 dred acres of it may be conveniently irrigated if desired, and the 

 college supplied with water from an elevated fountain. There is 

 a very suitable spot for college buildings about one mile from 

 the lake, on a crown of land draining outward in every direction, 

 and commanding a view of Seneca Lake for more than twenty 

 miles, and large portions of the eastern slopes of the counties of 



