AGRICULTUEAL COLLEGE. 429 



DEPARTMENT OF PRACTICAL 

 AGRICULTURE. 



President James C. Gkeenough. 



Sir: — The following report on the course of instruction 

 in this department, for the year 1883, is respectfully pre- 

 sented : — 



In accordance with arrangements which assigned a part of 

 my time to work in connection with the experiment station, 

 my duties at the college have been strictly confined to 

 instruction in the class room. 



Owing to a revision of the courses of study, at the begin- 

 ning of the year, it has been necessary to give instruction in 

 special topics in a different order than that laid down in the 

 regular course, to bring the standing of the several classes in 

 agriculture in harmony with the curriculum published in the 

 catalogue. 



From the want of suitable text-books, instruction in agri- 

 culture must be given almost entirely by lectures, and a 

 certain amount of mental discipline, particularly in the habit 

 of concentrated systematic attention, is required on the part 

 of the student to enable him to derive the greatest profit 

 from them. For this reason, it seems desirable that the 

 course in agriculture should not begin until the last term of 

 the freshman year. 



My aim has been, in all parts of the course, to give prom- 

 inence to the practical principles of the art, which represent 

 the accumulated experience of the best farmers. 



The mission of science, in its relations to agriculture, in 

 its several departments of physics, — chemistry, biology 

 (including animal and vegetable physiology), and political 

 and social economy, — is to explain the established methods 

 of practice, interpret the more exact results obtained in 



