364 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



'* Sec. 11. The Legislature shall encourage the promotion of intellectual, 

 scientific, and agricultural improvement, and shall, as soon as practicable, 

 provide for the establishment of an Agricultural scliool. The Legislature may 

 appropriate the twenty-two sections of Salt Spring lands now unappropriated, 

 or the money arising from the sale of the same, where such lands have been 

 already sold, and any land which may hereafter be gratited or appropriated 

 for such purpose, for the support and maintenance of such school, and may 

 make the same a branch of the University for instruction in agriculture and 

 the natural sciences connected therewith, and place the same under the 

 supervision of the Eegents of the University." 



1351. 



In 185 1 Gov. Barry called attention in his message, to the constitutional 

 provision, and considerable discussion was provoked on the subject. The 

 Superintendent of Public Instruction, F. W. Sherman, and the Hon. John 

 Shearer, chairman of the House committee on agriculture, recommended the 

 forming of a department for instruction in agriculture in the Normal School. 

 House Doc. No. 5, 1851, and letters on file. 



The University at once proceeded to organize an agricultural school as a 

 department, and Dr. Henry P. Tappan, Chancellor of the University, wrote 

 to Secretary Holmes (letter on file), that anticipating that the twenty-two 

 sections of salt spring lands, named in the constitution, will be given to the 

 University for an agricultural school, "We have accordingly organized an 

 agricuUural school as part of the scientific course recently adopted by the 

 faculty and regents." The agricultural course extended through four terms, 

 three terms constituting a year. 



Dr. Tappan afterwards gave an address at the State fair (Sept. 1853), in 

 which he speaks of his plan still further. See Michigan Agricultural Report, 

 1853, pages 188, 198 to 200. 



In 1854 the chair of agriculture in the University was filled by the Rev. 

 Charles Fox, an Englishman, educated at Rugby, Rector of the Episcopal 

 church at Grosse Isle. Agriculture was the favorite study of Mr. Fox, and he 

 had some time previously to his appointment given to the University library 

 $100 to enlarge the store of agricultural literature. Mr. Fox died after occu- 

 pying the University chair less than two years. Our library contains a work 

 of Mr. Fox's on agriculture. 



1S53. 



A bill for an Agricultural College passed the Senate of 1853, by a vote of 

 17 to 14, but was lost in the House by a vote of 36 to 24. The Society then 

 sent its executive committee to visit the University and the Normal School to 

 see what was doing in the way of instruction in scientific agriculture in those 

 institutions. They visited Ann Arbor January 25, 1854. Professor Fox was 

 delivering at the time a course of lectures on practical and scientific agricult- 

 ure. Tlie committee listened to a lecture by Professor Fox on " Rotation of 

 Crops," and were highly pleased. Thecommittee also listened, at the Normal 

 School, to a lecture by Prof. L. R. Fisk, on " Organic and Inorganic Materials 

 of tiie Soil, and its Improvement by Manuring, Draining, and Pulverization." 



The State Agricultural Society, however, had become fixed in their prefer- 

 ence for a separate institution, and in December, 1852, appointed a committee 

 to urge on the Legislature the establishment of a separate school, not in imme- 

 diate proximity to any existing educational institution, on a farm, of not less 

 than 040 acres. Michigan Agriculture, 1854, pp. 340 341. 



