40 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



culture in Cornell and in Iowa Agricultural College, and the Professors of Chem- 

 istry in tlie University of Wisconsin and in Obcrlin are graduates of this College. 

 The farmers among the graduates are rising in influence as they increase in 

 experience, and it is certain tluit a greater number would be found in the farm- 

 ing ranks but for the fact that farming requires a large cash capital to begin 

 Avith, while many if not most of our graduates have only their health, educa- 

 tion, and good liabits for capital when they leave college. But tlic knowledge 

 gained here will be of use to them and to society in wliatever calling. Their 

 knowledge of agriculture and its needs, and sympathy with men in that busi- 

 ness, will be of value to agricultural interests. 



farmers' institutes. 



Tiie College, in 18 7G, inaugurated the holding of Farmers' Institutes in the 

 winter vacation, six each year, in different parts of the State. Tiie citizens of 

 the vicinity where they are held furnish one-half the lectures and addresses and 

 particijiatc in the discussions. These institutes have been very successful, and 

 full reports of them appear in the successive reports of the Board of Agricul- 

 ture. A sketch of the beginning of this work will be found in the report for 

 1875, page 72. 



CLOSING REMARKS. 



Eighty years ago there was not a school of Agriculture in the world. There 

 are now thirty-nine in our own country. All of these, except our own and the 

 one in Pennsylvania, were established subsequently to a grant of lands made by 

 Congress in 18G2. In no State does the College liave so honorable a beginning 

 as in ours. The people tliemselves in establishing their constitution made its 

 establishment imperative. Its language is "Tiie Legislature shall provide for 

 the establishment of an Agricultural School." The origin of no otiier agri- 

 cultural college rises so near tlie primal source of power. No other State has 

 been so patient with the failings, so hopeful in the progress of its Agricultural 

 School, nor so constant in its appropriations for its support. Criticisms it has 

 had freely, and sometimes advei'sc votes enough to make its friends tremble ; 

 but more farmers have voted to sustain it than have voted against it, in every 

 Senate and House of Kepresentatives from tlie first session after its establisli- 

 ment to this day. They have seen that the education given in the schools and 

 colleges of the land were not at all planned for tlie farmer's benefit. Of course 

 it would do the farmer good to go through college and learn its Greek and its 

 calculus, but the liberal education imparted in these Colleges had close rela- 

 tionship to the learned professions as they were called, and no peculiar adapted- 

 ness to the wants of the agriculturist. 



From this felt need in the better educated farmers of our land have sprung into 

 being these colleges — not that they believed all young men would flock to them, 

 but that they deplored the general indifference of their class to such an educa- 

 tion as should make them acquainted with the philosophy of their occupation. 

 There were in 1857, the date of tlie opening of the ]\lichigan Agricultural 

 College, almost no special students of agriculture in our land. The students 

 now in these colleges exceed four thousand. 



Tlie House of Kepresentatives at Washington appointed a committee of 

 eleven to examine into the condition of these colleges. The report was made 

 in January, 1875 — was unanimous, and saA'S, **' A considerable number of these 

 colleges have done work which requires no apology, and a few of those earliest 



