298 STATE BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



Ill former times muscular strengtli Avas regarded as all important. Then the 

 heroes and great men Avere those who like Hercules were able to astonish the 

 Avorld with muscular feats. But we of to-day recognize that the high road to 

 achievement, greatest power, and happiness is througli a well disciplined mind. 

 In otlier professions tlian tliat of farming men liavo always recognized the fact 

 that they must educate themselves if they would make a success, but not so 

 with the farmer, for the general opinion has been that any man knew enough 

 for a farmer, but tlie man that tliinks so to-day had best keep silent lest his 

 "braying betray his ears." 



Do we all admit that "knowledge is power?" If we do, then we must admit 

 that the want of knowledge is weakness. If this truth applies to any calling, 

 it surely does to that of the farmer. Isolated from his fellow men, he has not 

 the facilities for cultivating quick perceptions and logical thought that those 

 have who are more closely associated. The determining of correct systems in 

 agriculture is more complicated than in any other business. The farmer needs 

 to know what to do, how to do, and why. Liebig says there is no profession 

 which for its successful practice requires a larger extent of knowledge than 

 agriculture, and none in which the actual degree of ignorance is so great. We 

 know too little in regard to the wants and conditions of demand and supply'. 

 We depend too much upon what the buyers of our products tell us. We should 

 know for ourselves. 



In the social and political scale we go up too quick, constituting as we do 

 fifty-two one-huudredths of the population. If we possessed the proper requi- 

 sites, we would exert an influence for good, and one that would be felt. Sons 

 of farmers would not be so willing to forsake the calling to become wearers of 

 stove pipes and dealers in needles and pins, but would see in the calling of the 

 farmer equally alluring prizes in the shape of honor, influence, and wealth. 

 If we would raise our social and political standing, we must give more dignity 

 to labor and learn to think and act for ourselves. The question arises how is 

 all this to be accomplished. In one breath, we all answer, by education. 



To many the way is through the newspapers and periodicals, through far- 

 mers' clubs, and through the grange. 



We have to lament that Michigan, the leader in agricultural education, has 

 but one paper, the Michigan Farmer, devoted wholly to tiie farmers' interests, 

 and it is claimed that it would die in less than a year if other interests than 

 the farmers' did not come to its aid. 



In other counties of the State farmers have united and formed clubs, some 

 of which have gained for themselves an influential name, such as those of 

 Mason and Romeo. But St. Joseph county, far above the average in soil, 

 wealth, and I hope in ability, does without. Tiie grange, an organization for 

 the farmers' improvement, affords an excellent means. Because a few years 

 ago you heard so much of tlie order wlien everything was all excitement, and 

 because everything to-day passes along without noise or friction, do not think 

 that it is dead, for if you will join its ranks and exert your little influence, you 

 will find it to be the liveliest corpse you ever beheld. But to the younger class, 

 to tlie growing and coming generations, there is another means. 



Tiiis is by getting an education at our college, — tlic farmers' college. 



This college was establislied in accordance with an act of legislature of 1855. 

 They appropriated, for its benefit, twenty-two sections of land, given to the 

 State while yet a territory by the general government. In 1863 it accepted 

 the congressional grant of lands, amounting to 30,000 acres of land for each 



