LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 379 



lege hall, a boarding hall, a brick barn, and five dwellings. By the middle of 

 next year there will be eleven dwelling houses, two dormitories, a college hall, 

 chemical laboratory, botanical laboratory, green house, library hall, astron- 

 omical observatory, apiary, a boiler house, and eight farm and garden barns. 

 A library of 1,200 books has grown to 8,000. The stock has increased from a 

 valuation of $1,400 to a valuation of 818,000, and the number of students 

 from 66 to 185. The property at the college is valued at 8340,000. 



Through frequent reappointments sixteen appointed members have filled 

 out the terms of twenty-six. The utmost harmony has always prevailed in the 

 Board, and one of the members named in the law, the Hon. H. Gr. "Wells, of 

 Kalamazoo, remained on the Board continuously, usually as its president, 

 from 1861 to the spring of 1883. 



The graduates of the college number (1882) 272, and are scattered into 

 twenty-four States and territories, although three-fourths of them remain in 

 Michigan. One-half the graduates are farmers, or engaged in business 

 directly related to farming, and a much larger proportion are in occupations 

 related to industrial arts. 



The chair of practical agriculture was established in 1865. The last chair 

 established is that of veterinary, the last before that was of horticulture as 

 distinct from botany, and the addition to the duties of the botanist of instruc- 

 tion in forestry. 



In one sense the college has gone beyond its enclosures, for its six annual 

 winter farmers' institutes bring the college men and farmers together in the 

 common discussion of topics, and the future opens a prospect of honorable 

 usefulness. It is, and may it ever remain, the Farmers' College. 



THE SOUEOE OF THE NITEOGEN OF PLANTS. 



BY E. C. KEDZIE. 

 [Read at Armada and Galesburg Institutes.] 



The source of the nitrogen of plants has been to agricultural chemists what 

 the northwest passage through the polar sea has been to navigators. The 

 difficulties in the solution of each problem have been correspondingly great, 

 and the fascination of defeat which challenges new endeavor has tantalized 

 both classes of explorers. The northwest passage is not thrown open to the 

 world's commerce, and the sphinx nitrogen still propounds her unsolved riddles 

 by the wayside of the world's most useful calling. For a novice like myself to 

 enter a field which has been explored by Priestley, Sennebier, DeSaussure, 

 Boussingault, Ville, Lawes, Gilbert, and Pugh, suggests Pope's stinging line, 



" Fools rash in where angels fear to tread." 



Yet, we should remember that most of the valuable discoveries in science 

 have come from the united contributions of many minds, and suggestions from 

 unexpected sources have sometimes proved of great importance. We must 

 remember that truth is discovered, not invented. A person of very ordinary 

 ability may yet find a most precious gem, or a golden nugget of priceless 

 value. 



