STATE AGBICULTURAL SOCIETY. 59 



memorial (Assembly document No. 65, of that year); it went to 

 the Committee on Agriculture, who reported favorably upon it 

 and reported a bill, but it did not pass; but a joint resolution 

 was passed, directing the Governor to appoint a commission of 

 eight, one from each judicial district, to prepare and report a 

 plan for an Agricultural College and Experimental Farm. The 

 commissioners were appointed, and prepared and reported a plan 

 to the next Legislature (Assembly Doc. No. 30, 1850). That 

 report went to the Committee on Agriculture, who reported favor- 

 ably upon it with a bill, but the bill shared the fate of its pre- 

 decessor. 



The friends of the project, who had spent so much time and 

 labor and thought upon a matter in which they had no individual 

 interest, seeing little prospect of success at present, concluded to 

 suspend their efforts, " and wait what change the wheel of time 

 might bring." 



The next movement, as you learn from the present executive of 

 the State, was by the lamented John Delafield, of Seneca county, 

 who, in 1853, came to the Legislature, and with great exertions, 

 aided by many personal friends and friends of agriculture, pro- 

 cured the passage of "an act to incorporate the New- York State 

 Agricultural College," naming a board of ten trustees in the act. 

 No pecuniary aid from the State was provided in the bill, and Mr. 

 Delafield and the trustees were left to begin the work from pri- 

 vate contribution. 



The trustees designated the farm of Mr. Delafield, about two 

 or three miles east of Geneva, for the college, when means should 

 be procured to purchase it and go forward with the work. Con- 

 siderable progress had been made in obtaining subscriptions to 

 the fund, when Mr. Delafield suddenly died. 



In the year 1855, the people of Ovid, in the county of Seneca, 

 and its vicinity, with a most commendable public spirit, made an 

 active effort to revive the project. A subscription was got up 

 and a large sum of money subcribed for the college. Tlie Rev. 

 Mr. Brown of that place, who had been very active in procuring 

 the subscription, was commissioned to come to the Legislature 

 and, if possible, procure pecuniary aid from the State to prose- 

 cute the work. His efforts were promptly seconded by the friends 

 of the project from different parts of the State, and the last Le- 



