22 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



labor which it has hitherto performed, in spite of public indiffer- 

 ence, and without that authority which an organized institution 

 of learning always enjoys, may be largely increased in value by 

 being connected with the recognized head of agricultural edu- 

 cation in the State. The investigations which have been made 

 by the Board, the essays which the members 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 recep- 

 tacle of the careful investigations carried on at an experimental 

 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 through which we now grope. 

 You will all agree with me, I am confident, that the character 

 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 arc 

 largely increased — to ourselves as well as to the community. 



And when we would apply that section of the Act incorpor- 

 ating 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 practical husbandry," in what better way can this be 

 done than by submitting section after section of this State, or 

 county after county, to the carefnl exploration of the college, 

 until its resources in soils, capacity for crops, in forests, in peat 

 and minerals, in all productiveness, be thoroughly understood, 



