s 



32 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



It has been impossible with our limited means to create lierds of cattle hav- 

 ing animals equal in value to tliose of special breeders of the different kinds. 

 It is not infrequently said at Institutes and gatherings of farmers that the 

 College should possess the best specimens to be found in the State of each breed, 

 and it is generally added, "if they cannot afford it, let us, the people of the 

 State, place them where they can do it."' If this were the only want of the 

 College it miglit easily be met; but the wants of the College are various and 

 large. The College stock is respectable in quality. The College made no ex- 

 hibition of stock in the State Fair of 1878, but it made 32 entries and sent 24 

 animals in 1877. "^riie animals were entered, as they must be by our rules, for 

 cxl)ibition only, but the opinion of their value was expressed by the judges by 

 their decorating five Shorthorns with blue ribbons, and two with red, two Devons 

 with blue ribbons, one with red, two Ayrshires with red ribbons, two Jerseys 

 witii blue ribbons, and two Galloways with blue ribbons. This classes eleven 

 animals as equals at least of those that took the first prizes, and five as the 

 equals of those taking the second prizes. 



I have dwelt at some length on the farm and stock, on account of the gen- 

 eral curiosity as to them. Every catalogue contains a small map of the 

 farm, with numbered fields, and every annual report gives an account of each 

 field and each crop. 



IXSTRUCTION IN AGRICULTURE. 



In addition to manual labor on the farm, under good foremen and the lec- 

 tures of Dr. Kedzic in Agricultural Chemistry, and those of Prof. Beal in 

 Vegetable Physiology and Horticulture, the Professor of Agriculture, Mr. 

 Ingersoll, gives two full courses of lectures in Practical Agriculture. In these 

 lectures agriculture is treated of as an art founded on experience. The rules 

 that have been found to work best are taught, whether we see through them or 

 not. It is not easy, nor perhaps desirable, to make a very definite line of 

 demarcation between the methods of instruction of the Professor of Agricul- 

 ture and tliose of tiie Agricultural Chemist. The one will speak of scientific 

 explanation, and the other of empirical rules ; and, indeed, the two professors 

 confer with each other and help each other in their experiments. But in the 

 main, except in experiments, the fields of instruction of the two are sufficiently 

 separate. 



The first course of lectures on Agriculture is given in the Freshman year, 

 the other in the Senior, giving, as ni case of Botany, almost all the experience 

 of the College course of the student between them. Before this last course, 

 students will have had a years continuous work on the farm ; wih have been 

 through the study of Botany, become familiar with grasses, grains, vegetables, 

 trees; and will have had Agricultural Ciicmistry, the study of Anatomy and 

 Physiology, and other branches. The study of agriculture thus almost begins 

 and almost closes our course of study. 



The following is a brief 



SYNOPSIS OF LECTURES IN PRACTICAL AGRICULTURE. 



Freshman Course. 



History of Agriculture, not only showing the changes that have taken place 

 in the same country in different periods of time : but comparing tliose that 

 have taken place in different countries, at the same period. 



