BOTANY AT AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. G7 



may surely be expected to regard with favor any reasonable 

 plan for its advancement ; and the people of Barre, with five 

 of their young men now members of the College, will be eager 

 to have the best means provided for their education in so im- 

 portant a branch of science, as well as in all its useful appli- 

 cations, especially to agriculture, forestry and horticulture. 

 The trustees have from the first treated this department with 

 extraordinary consideration, and done all in their power to 

 promote its welfare. They have appropriated the most suit- 

 able portion of the College estate to its objects, and erected a 

 tasteful building for a lecture-room, library and museum. 

 Valuable gifts of books and plants have been made by Hon. 

 Marshall P. Wilder, Hon. Albert Fearing, and many other 

 liberal benefactors. William Knowlton, Esq., has given two 

 thousand dollars for the purchase of an extensive herba- 

 rium, and the erection of glass cases for its accommodation. 

 Dr. Nathan Durfee, himself a large cultivator of fruits and 

 flowers, both under glass and in the open air, has built the 

 beautiful and commodious plant-house which bears his name, 

 at a cost of ten thousand dollars. The foundation of this de- 

 partment was laid, however, by Messrs. L. M. and H. F. Hills, 

 who contributed ten thousand dollars as a fund, the income 

 of which should be applied to the purchase of such books, 

 drawings, apparatus and specimens as might be deemed most 

 desirable by the director of the botanic garden. 



The most pressing wants at the present time are suitable 

 glass structures for propagating plants, for forcing vegetables 

 and flowers, and for raising peaches, apricots, grapes and 

 pine-apples. Till these are provided, it will be impossible to 

 qualify students to act as intelligent and skilful gardeners. ■ 

 This profession, which should be most attractive from its asso- 

 ciations and honorable from the intelligence it requires, — now 

 filled almost exclusively by foreigners, — ought to receive large 

 accessions from the ranks of our young men, and would, if 

 they enjoyed the opportunity of suitable education. At least 

 twenty-five thousand dollars are imperatively needed to com- 

 plete the original design of the Durfee plant-house, and erect 

 the additional buildings wanted. Sales to the amount of three 

 thousand dollars per annum might then be made, which would 

 do much toward rendering the department self-sustaining. The 



