CONNECTION OP THE BOARD WITH THE COLLEGE. £31 



which an organized institution of learning always enjoys, may be 

 largely increased in value by being connected with the recognized 

 head of agricultural education in the State. The investigations 

 which have been made by the Board, the essays which the mem- 

 bers have published, the experiments which they have recorded, 

 would have been laid before the public with much more effect, had 

 they undergone the scrutiny of a scientific body laboring in the 

 same cause. It is not difficult to see that the annual report of the 

 Board may be raised above what it already is, if it shall be made 

 the receptacle of the careful investigations carried on at an experi- 

 mental farm connected with the college. Add to what we now 

 have in the volume, the results of analysis and comparison made 

 at the college under the eye of science, and what a flood of light 

 might be poured upon the dark places thi'ough which we now 

 grope. You will all agree with me, I am confident, that the char- 

 acter of our agricultural literature may be improved, and that any 

 effort which will raise it to the standard of foreign writing on the 

 same subjects should be speedily and energetically made. Is it 

 too much to hope that our annual report may be made a model 

 volume, by the stimulus and illumination which may come to it 

 from an agricultural college ? 



These meetings for discussion, too, how might they be guided 

 and improved by the instruction of those whose business it is to 

 keep their minds prepared for the work of education. The success 

 of a debate almost always depends upon the manner in which it is 

 opened. Make it the duty of the professors and young men of the 

 college to take part in these public assemblies, and you will find 

 at once that their value and importance are largely increased — to 

 ourselves as well as to the community. 



And when we would apply that section of the act incorporating 

 the Board, which provides that the Secretary may appoint an agent 

 "to visit the towns in the State, under the direction of the Board, 

 for the purpose of inquiring into the methods and wants of practi- 

 cal husbandry," in what better way can this be done than by sub- 

 mitting section after section of this State, or county after county, 

 to the careful exploration of the college, until its resources in soils, 

 capacity for crops, in forests, in peat and minerals, in all produc- 

 tiveness, be thoroughly understood, and their value thoroughly 

 appreciated? "County surveys," made in this way might be 

 invaluable, and the Board might rank in this respect witli any 

 similar bureau in the Old World or the new, and Massachusetts 



