232 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



take the lead in collecting and arranging the statistics of agri- 

 culture and natural resources — in which work the department of 

 agriculture under the general government has so lamentably failed. 

 The information which the Board has already collected is of great 

 value. How much more important may it be made by being 

 brought to the college, and thence diffused through lecture and 

 publication. 



It seems to me, moreover, that by the connection proposed, the 

 Board of Agriculture may do much towards the support of the 

 college. Representing, as the members of the Board do, every 

 farm in the State, they enjoy an especial opportunity to bring the 

 college under the notice of all farmers, and to enlist the sympathy 

 of others who have acquired the power to own land and the taste 

 to adorn and improve it, and who only ask for sufficient knowledge 

 of its management to be able to develop all its capacity and beauty. 

 Let us bind, then, the farm, the agricultural society, the board and 

 the college, into one grand system of agricultural education, in 

 which each may aid the others in performing well their part. 



It should also be the duty and privilege of a Board of Agricul- 

 ture to examine the students in the college, either by sub-commit- 

 tees or as a body, at the close of each term of the course, or at 

 such times as the faculty might designate. Examinations of this 

 description are common in other colleges ; and nothing could be 

 more appropriate than the plan I have proposed, when we consider 

 the wide-spread interest in and knowledge of the college, which it 

 would naturally create. It forms a part of that system of co- 

 operation and support which I think is due from the agricultural 

 community to an institution founded for their especial benefit. To 

 encourage and strengthen the hands of the president and faculty, 

 in their endeavors to establish a system of agricultural education, 

 is a service to which the Board of Agriculture may well devote 

 itself — a service which it can perform without interfering in any 

 way with that part of the government of the college which belongs 

 to the trustees; a service, which, if properly discharged, may 

 stamp the college as an institution devoted to teaching the science 

 and art of agriculture, and may develop a successful and useful 

 mode of instructing our farmers, 'and of giving greater certainty 

 to their business. 



Having considered the advantages which the board may derive 

 from the proposed connection with the college, I now come to the 



