LIVE STOCK BREEDERS. 185 



endowing and equipping their universities but dole out with miserly 

 hand in insufficient dribs to our agricultural colleges. 



Heretofore the great highways to advancement and preferment were 

 through the universities; but I believe the day has dawned when the 

 farmers' sons will find that the doors of the agricultural college open 

 np a better field for a high order of talent, and opportunities for ad- 

 vancement in a more remunerative calling than any of the professions. 

 The professions are over-crowded, but not so with the graduates of the 

 agricultural colleges ; there are places awaiting them all at living wages. 

 The universities deal with text books and precedents, with paths worn 

 smooth with the feet of ages ; and when you have passed through them, 

 you are crammed with obsolete truth and mildewed facts. It takes 

 an original, bright mind to come out of their pedantic walls without old 

 fossilized ideas clinging to his academic skirts, that impede his progress. 



But how different with the agricultural college; their professors 

 have not learned it all. they are enthusiastic students themselves, their 

 ears are open to catch the faintest whisper of old Mother Nature, as she 

 yields up grudgingly her secrets ; and the charm will brighten as we 

 delve deeper into the problems of animal and plant life. I believe in 

 higher education, and am glad the State is liberal with her University; 

 but between the two, for the advancement of the State in commercial 

 and industrial growth, for the wealth and happiness of her people, I be- 

 lieve the Agricultural College, if properly equipped would prove the 

 greater blessing. 



Since writing the above, I clip the following from an address by Mr. 

 Geo. V,. Van Xorman of the Union Stock Yards, before a Wisconsin in- 

 stitute : "If you will stop and figure, you will see the difference be- 

 tween the 500 pound scrub as compared with the 700 pound grade. 

 The 500 pound scrub is worth 3 cents a pound, which would be $15.00, 

 the 700 pound grade is worth 4^ cents a pound, which would be $31.50, 

 a difference of $16.50 more than the scrub and both the same age. The 

 farmer that raises scrub cattle needs enlightenment, the kind that helps 

 his pockets, helps liis family and helps his country. W'c breeders have 

 been sending out pure bred bulls as missionaries, but if each neighbor- 

 hood that raises scrub cattle could have one of their farmer boys take a 

 full course at the college and experiment station, he would be a true 

 missionary, waging a war of death to the scrub and preaching the gospel 

 ■of good blood." 



DISCUSSION OF MR. GABBERT's PaI'F.R. 



Mr. Gabbert — I studied a long time whether I would put in that idea. 

 I believe m higher education, I believe in it for the growth of the country, 

 but we are living in an industrial age, in a time when every calling must 



