AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 207 



So far as small fruit and vegetable gardening are concerned, the needs of 

 the institution have insured their cultivation upon a scale adequate to educa- 

 tional needs. 



The necessity to maintain the surroundings of the institution in a present- 

 able condition has so far secured the collection, planting and proper manage- 

 ment of the indigenous and exotic trees and plants as to fully warrant the 

 favorable report and award of the committee of the State Pomological Society 

 already quoted. 



The ornamental grounds are, very properly, placed in charge of the 

 professor of horticulture, who is expected to see that they are properly kept, 

 and that the ornamental devices are in keeping with the general plan. In 

 doing this, the propagation of bedding and other plants becomes needful, if 

 not, in fact, indispensable. The greenhouse, with the requisite facilities for 

 propagation, are understood to be maintained for this purpose, and hence 

 should be under thr control of the head of this department. Instead of this 

 they are controlled independently, and the bedding is apparently confined to 

 the more immediate vicinity of the greenhouse, a state of affairs liable, if 

 not likely, to seriously interfere with the departmental plans. Doubtless the 

 alleged fact that this department is not allowed adequate means for its efficient 

 and sitisfactory management is fairly chargeable to the excessive economy of 

 a legislature not well informed as to actual conditions, but it may also be in- 

 ferred that more or less of the difficulty may lie back of even this in a pos- 

 sible lack of sympathy with and appreciation of horticulture by the majority 

 of the members of the Board of Agriculture, since it matters little that an 

 individual member is in sympathy with the needs of this department, and 

 that his ear is open to its calls, so long as his associates cannot be led to com- 

 prehend and concede their propriety. 



It is believed to be very generally true that the men who arrive at success 

 and notoriety as farmers are quite commonly such as give their undivided and 

 earnest attention to farming in its narrower sense, as not including horticult- 

 ure, and that such are the persons popularly regarded as representative farm- 

 ers, and hence the proper persons to constitute a Board of Agriculture. It 

 is not known or claimed that the Michigan Board of Agriculture is thus con- 

 stituted, and it only need be said that horticulture is a branch of and in- 

 cluded in agriculture, and that, therefore, no person should be adjudged fitted 

 for a position upon such a board who is not an adept in both, and therefore 

 qualified to give to each its relative position as well as its proper- weight. 



