PROGKESS IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 291 



Detroit, who had been senior editor of the Farmer's Companion and 

 Horticultural Gazette, and later, in 1854, published a " Text-book of 

 Agriculture," which was the first agricultural text published west of 

 the State of New York. 



INIr. Howe's manuscript goes somewhat into the details of the strug- 

 gles in Michigan for and against the establishment of the agricultural 

 college separate from the State University; calls attention to the 

 admission of young women students to the college in 1870, who " pre- 

 pared seed for the ground, cut potatoes, transplanted tomatoes and 

 flowering plants, pruned shrubbery, gathered small fruit, did some 

 work in the greenhouse, and many other kinds of work;" and gives 

 references to records dealing with the early efi'orts of W. C. Flagg, 

 secretary of the board of trustees of the Illinois Industrial Univer- 

 sity, and Dr. Manly Miles, professor of agriculture in the Michigan 

 Agricultural College, for the establishment of a society which was the 

 forerunner of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and 

 Experiment Stations. Ninety-eight pages of the report of the 

 Michigan State Agricultural Society for 1871 are given to the dis- 

 cussions had in the first meeting of this society, held in Chicago, 

 August 24, 1871, which were participated in by such men as Doctor 

 Miles, Professor Swallow, Prof. John Hamilton, now farmers' insti- 

 tute specialist of this Office, Professor Oilman (then of the Sheffield 

 Scientific School, later President of Johns Hopkins University), 

 President Welch. President Denison, Professor Hilgard, and others. 



Among other valuable documents received are an article by Paul 

 Selby, of Chicago, on " The Part of Illinois in the National Educa- 

 tional Movement, 1851-1862," and a manuscript contributed by J. N. 

 Hook, of South Carolina, this being a statement dictated by Senator 

 Benjamin R. Tillman, setting forth his connection with the struggle 

 (1885-1890) to establish a separate agricultural and mechanical col- 

 k^ge at Clemson, S. C. 



Interesting historical data on agricultural education are found in 

 a recently published address by M. F. Dickinson on "The Beginnings 

 of College History," which was delivered at the celebration of the 

 fortieth anniversary of the founding of the Massachusetts Agricul- 

 tural College. This address presented a very interesting review of 

 the movements which led to the establishment of the Massachusetts 

 Agricultural College, the only one of its type in the United States, 

 In 1792 the Massachusetts legislature incorporated the Massachusetts 

 Society for Promoting Agriculture, an organization which still exists 

 and is fulfilling its mission. So far as known only two other agricul- 

 tural societies have so early an origin — one in Ireland and the other 

 in Scotland; the British board of agriculture was not created until 

 the next year. In 1813 the Massachusetts societv bejran its semi- 



ft r^ 



annual publication of the Massachusetts Agricultural Journal, now 



