ISO STATE BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. 



mals renders it of the utmost importance that there should be a much wider 

 diffusion of scientific knowledge regarding the care and treatment of animals, 

 their diseases, symptoms, effects, causes, and remedies. 



I need not here enumerate tlie other subjects taught at the Agricultural Col- 

 lege; they are similar to those taught at colleges every where. I would, how- 

 ever, notice here that besides the work of the study and the class-room there 

 is a system of manual labor. The student is required to work three hours each 

 working day excepting Saturday. Eight cents an hour is usually paid for this 

 work, which meets, in part, the expense of attending college. It is designed 

 that the labor shall be as far as possible educational. The next important con- 

 siderations are the preservation of health and the cultivation of a taste for the 

 actual work of the farm and garden. The following is from the catalogue 

 of 1S83 : 



Four years of study, witlioiit labor, wholly removed from sympathy with the labor- 

 ing world, during the period of life when habits and tastes are rapidly formed, will 

 almost inevitably produce disinclination, if not inability, to perform the work and 

 duties of the farm. To accomplish the olDJects of the institution, it is evident that 

 the student must not, in acquiring a scientific education, lose either the ability or the 

 disposition to labor on the farm. If the farmers, then, are to be educated, they must 

 be educated on the farm itself; and it is due to this large class of our population that 

 facilities for improvement, second to none other in the State, be afforded them. 



It is believed that the three hours' work that every student is required to perform 

 on the farm or in the garden, besides serving to render him familiar with the use of 

 implements and the principles of agriculture, is sufficient also to preserve habits of 

 manual labor, and to foster a taste for agricultural pursuits. It has been found in the 

 past sufficient to keep the students interested in every department of farm and horti- 

 cultural work; and the daily labor of each one, being performed atone time, does not 

 occupy him longer than is requisite for preserving health and a robust constitution. 



As regards the experimental work of the college I can only here refer to 

 that in the most general manner. The results of the various experiments 

 conducted are published in my report from time to time in connection with 

 the reports of the several departments. Among the more recent have been 

 experiments with ensilage, both with reference to the cost of preparing and 

 curing it, and also with regard to its value as compared with otlier food. 



The farm has also been experimenting with different varieties of grain. 

 The Board have now under consideration more extended experiments in the 

 feeding of domestic animals than has lieretofore been undertaken at the Col- 

 lege. 



The chemical department has been conducting a number of experiments 

 regarding the food value of different varieties of corn, the proper stage of 

 ripeness at which to harvest wheat; the practicability of manufacturing a 

 marketable article of syrup and sugar from sorghum stalks, and also one of the 

 most difficult and important experiments yet undertaken in the line of Agri- 

 culture, viz. : the source of nitrogen in plants. 



The department of botany and horticulture has also been conducting some 

 experiments. I am not so familiar with those. They are no doubt adding 

 considerably to our knowledge of the habits of plants. 



I have an impression that among the more advanced farmers of the State 

 there is a feeling that the college has not done as much experimental work as 

 it should. More of this kind of work undoubtedly might have been done 

 very profitably. But I doubt whether much more could have been done in 

 connection with the other work that the professors have had to do. 



Through the study of nature man has learned the constitution of the 

 atmosphere and the properties of the several elements that enter into it. He 



