AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 451 



of the College, but on the contrary, cement a friendship between two 

 institutions, both working for a common end, but in ways applicable 

 to each in its special field of labor. 



THE RELATIONS OF THE GRANGE TO THE AGRICULTURAL 



COLLEGE. 



HON. GEO. B. HORTON, MAh,TEE OF STATE GRANGE 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 



I fully appreciate the honor conferred upon a great farmers' organiza- 

 tion of our State by inviting me, as its official head, to be present on 

 this, the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of the Agricultural 

 College, It is often said, thiS is a day and age of progress, and of wonder- 

 ful achievements, and no object lesson can prove this more conclusively 

 than the present high standing of our educational institutions, as- the 

 result of constant demands upon them by the people for broadening of 

 methods and the adoption of new and advanced ideas in their work. 



Forty years is comparatively a short space of time, and is but about 

 the working, active days of the man who lives the alloted four score 

 and ten years, yet during and within these years all that we may now 

 see before and around about us pertaining to this institution has been 

 built and equipped, on grounds where up to that time was an unbroken 

 forest. 



I doubt not there are persons present who assisted in blazing the lines 

 through the woods for the now improved and well graded highways 

 over which are hauled daily loads of produce from the improved and 

 cultivated fields of the farms so recently reclaimed. L^pon these farms 

 we now see commodious houses and barns well calculated for the conven- 

 ience and comfort of family and stock that inhabit them. Then the deep 

 unbroken forest, now the stumpless, tile-drained fields, with homes sub- 

 stantial and beautiful. All these improvements are but an index to the 

 lives and purposes of an industrious and intelligent people. 



With these people it was but natural that education should be made 

 the foundation of the State's advancement, and the guide to its future 

 destiny. Thus liberal grants of the public domain was early made for 

 the establishment and permanent support of a general free school sys- 

 tem, and to furnish advanced opportunities for study along the lines of 

 preparation for active duty in the professions and various lines of busi- 

 ness. In this general plan the great and all important interest of agri- 

 culture was not left ont, but instead, received liberal recognition. 



When we consider that the success of agriculture measures the success 

 of all other interests and that as many people are engaged in agricultural 

 pursuits as in all others combined, we see the essential importance 

 attached to the work of this College, and which institution with its 

 relative departments should be the greatest, the best provided for, and 

 best patronized of any of the educational institutions of our common- 

 wealth. 



