NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL CONVENTION. ^01 



gress for the promotion of Colleges of Agriculture and the Me- 

 chanic Arts. 



2nd, The subject of establishing Experimental Farms and Sta- 

 tions for the promotion of agricultural knowledge. 



3d, The ques.tion of modifying the military instruction given in 

 the national colleges of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts. 



4th, The best methods of co-operating with one another and 

 with the Department of Agriculture. 



5th, The preservation of timber lands, especially of the west. 



6th, The establishment of State Boards of Agriculture in thoss 

 States in which they do not now exist. 



7th, The utility and necessity of a general plan of meteorologi- 

 cal observations and crop reports, and of a general system of 

 communicating the same by telegraph, " to the end that our 

 knowledge of the laws which control the functions of the atmos- 

 phere may be increased, and that accurate and useful forecasts 

 may be made at frequent intervals as to weather and crops in all 

 countries." 



For the proceedings of the convention in detail, reference is 

 made to the full report published by order of the Senate of the 

 United States. Some of the facts however, elicited by the discus- 

 sions of the topics given above, and some of the conclusions 

 reached may be of sufficient interest to justify their insertion in 

 this report. 



It appears from the discussion of the first topic, viz : the 

 expediency of seeking further land grants for agricultural colleges, 

 that the government has given for educational purposes of all 

 kinds about eighty million acres of the public lands, while of this 

 amount less than ten million acres have been devoted to the 

 endowment of State Colleges of Agriculture and the Mechanic 

 Arts. For railways and wagon roads more than two hundred 

 million acres have been given. Of the public domain yet unsur- 

 veyed and unsold there remain more than a thousand million acres. 



The statements made by the officers of the agricultural colleges 

 represented in the convention, clearly demonstrates the inadequacy 

 of the endowment of 1862 for the important work it is proposed 

 that these institutions -shall accomplish. In view of these facts 

 the action of the convention in soliciting from Congress, additional 

 land grants in behalf of these institutions, must commend itself to 

 every friend of scientific agriculture ; to every one who favdrs 

 increased facilities for the education of the industrial classes. 



