462 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ricultural. The colleges that beg in vain for agricultural students are 

 those which have no manual labor. This is a fact which investigation 

 will demonstrate to any person. I believe the "demagogical cry" is all 

 imaginary; at least, I have been very deeply interested in agricultural 

 colleges for more than twenty-five years, and I have never heard it. I 

 am pained to believe that too many regard hand labor "as really a be- 

 littling of mental culture." It is to be regretted that there are any such. 

 I think they are out of p'ace on American soil. 



In reply to the critic's closing paragraph about manual labor being 

 a "travesty on work, and an absolute waste of valuable time," I can only 

 say we find the reverse to be true. Our college has always insisted on 

 the manual labor feature. To-day our faculty and graduates are as one 

 man in speaking its praise. We believe it is this that has filled our halls 

 with exceptionally earnest capable young men; that has made our col- 

 lege the pride of the State Grange and farmers of the state; that has 

 sent such a surprisingly large proportion of its graduates on to farms, 

 and has been more influential than any other one thing in determining 

 the future of the large number of our graduates that are now acting as 

 professors in agricultural colleges, and that are employed in the several 

 experimental stations. Twenty-eight of our graduates are professors in 

 agricultural colleges or state universities, twenty-three are members of 

 experimental stations, and five are directors of such stations; while two 

 are presidents of colleges.; Surely this is not a bad .showing for a college 

 that graduated its first class in 1861. This manual labor reminds us of 

 Grant's whisky which Lincoln wished more ol his generals would drink. 



A. J. COOK. 



Michigan Ag'l College. 



UTILITY OF EXHIBITION OF FRUITS. CEREALS, ETC. 



Agricultural fairs, horticultural fairs, stock shows, etc., when well 

 done and well patronized, have in them a value not usually appreciated 

 by the masses, nor easily estimated by a careful observer. Not valu- 

 able mainly to stockholders or managers of such "Fair Associations" — 

 a large proportion are not remunerative, financially, as an enterprise, 

 nor even self-sustaining always. 



