AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 11 



PUBLIC MEETING OF THE BOARD 



AT SALEM. 



The usual country meeting of the State Board of Agriculture 

 for lectures and discussions, was held at Lyceum Hall, Salem, 

 commencing on Tuesday, December 11, at 12 o'clock, the place 

 of meeting having been changed from Concord by the Committee 

 on Meetings. The Board was called to order by Dr. Loring, 

 Chairman of the Committee, when Hon. Levi Stockbridge, of 

 Hadley, was requested to preside, and accordingly took the chair. 



The first business in order was a Lecture on 



THE CONNECTION OF THE STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE WITH THE 

 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



BY DR. GEORGE B. LORIXG. 



Gentlemen : — Agricultural education is yet in its infancy. 

 The business of farming has, it is true, attracted the attention 

 of the most enterprising and thoughtful in all ages ; the states- 

 man and political economist have recognized its importance to 

 society and to the state ; science has explored its mysteries ; to 

 the wealthy and ruling classes it has furnished opportunities for 

 gratifying the finest tastes and adorning the earth ; to the 

 laborer it has always brought the necessaries of life ; it has 

 never yet failed ; and it is as diverse in all its processes as are 

 the soils, and climates, and markets, and social and civil organi- 

 zations, on the face of the globe. Every prosperous and culti- 

 vated people has an interest in agriculture. A State without a 

 rural population is but half a State. A country without 

 products from the land is no country at all. And whether we 

 turn to the semi-barbarism of Asia, or to the half explored 

 regions of Africa and the islands of the southern seas, or to the 

 refinement and poverty of Europe, or to the social equality of 

 our own land, we find everywhere an appeal to the earth by the 

 devoted cultivator, and a liberal response to the call. Agricul- 

 ture is as old as man, and as universal. And yet we search in 

 vain for any system of agricultural education among ancient 

 records ; and we look in vain for any entirely successful system 

 in modern times. The early books on agriculture are chiefly 

 valuable as a history of the superstitions and popular delusions 



