362 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, 



University, the advocacy of an independent college upon a farm, the selection, 

 under restrictions, of the site, and subsequently, in ISGl, the advocacy of a 

 separate board — the State Board of Agriculture — for the control of the 

 college. Just before the opening of the college to students, the society gave to 

 the institution its library. Two, at least, of the members of the State Board 

 of Agriculture — Messrs. Welch and Phillips — were nominated to the governor 

 by the society. 



The relations existing between the State Agricultural Society and the col- 

 lege are most cordial. The society has a standing committee upon the college ; 

 and of late years its executive committee and officers have been wont to spend 

 a day each June at the college. These June days are festive days, when, as 

 guests of the State Board of Agriculture and of the faculty, the Agricultural 

 Society, with the officers of the equally friendly State Grange, and State 

 Horticultural Society, the affairs of the college are looked into and talked over 

 in an open conference, in the general lecture room of the institution. 



1850. 



January: A memorial was presented relative to agriculture by Bela Hub- 

 bard, Titus Dort, and J. 0. Holmes, representing that the committee of the 

 State Agricultural society had had in consideration a subject of great import- 

 ance, viz. : The establishment of a central agricultural office and an appro- 

 priation was deemed desirable for a library. Of this subject, in connection 

 with university, the agricultural committee says : In the organization of our 

 State university it was contemplated (as appears by section twenty-six of the 

 act) that " in one of the branches there should be a department of agriculture, 

 including vegetable physiology, agricultural chemistry, and experimental and 

 practical farming and agriculture." 



" Such a department, it is plain, to be vigorously and practically carried out 

 must have its more immediate and vital connection with the State Agricultural 

 society and its institutions. With an agricultural college should also be asso- 

 ciated a model and experimental farm, a botanical garden, and perhaps a 

 veterinary establishment. 



" By these means will the farmers of our State — its great leading class — be- 

 furnished with institutions peculiarly theirs. They will be provided with the 

 means of educating their youth in every practical and scientific detail necessary 

 or useful to that most important of all occupations, to as full an extent as is 

 now afforded by the higher colleges of our land, to candidates for the so-called 

 "learned professions." 



Another memorial from the State Agricultural society was presented to the 

 Legislature, praying for the establishment of a State Agricultural college. As 

 to the character and scope of such an institution the memorial says: 



'' The first and most important consideration is, that the institution would 

 be a labor school, in which the actual work performed by the pupils would be 

 passed to their credit, in the account for their instruction. Thus the expense 

 would be greatly diminished if not altogether paid. The very act of labor 

 would be a practical application of the precepts taught, and the poor would 

 enjoy equal privileges with the rich. 



"The institution should be attached to or form a branch of the State Uni- 

 versity, contemplated by the charter of that institution, and having the bene- 

 fit of lectures from professors, and such other sources as may be expedient;, 

 resident professors, with expensive salaries, would not be necessary. 



" The studies taught at this college should be of an eminently practical kind. 

 Besides agriculture in its details, mathematics and the keeping of accounts, 



