63 



jects of consideration shall be prescribed, and persons of high qualifica- 

 tions appointed to open the discussions. 



8. Tliat for each duty a specific organ, whether of the Department or 

 the societies, shall be provided, either by the appointment of an indi- 

 vidual or a committee. Thorough elaboration of information, and pro- 

 per digestion of matter for publication, shall, if possible, be the duty of 

 some officer of the Department. 



9. That among the subjects for reports at the next convention held, 

 according to the first resolution, be the following : 



First. On the importar.ce and means of improving physical expertness 

 in agricultural labor, the object being to devote to the development o± 

 human skill the attention too much confined to the horse and the brute 

 creation, and a report to be presented concerning expertness in farm- 

 labor. 



Second. On the importance to farmers of accurate accounts of ex- 

 penses, receipts in detail, and of careful study of these, as a means of 

 constant annual imi)rovement. 



Third. On the best means of organizing neigliborhood associations for 

 mutual improvement. 



Fourth. On the best method of conducting experiments, and the 

 necessity of careful records, and of separating the conditions involved. 



10. That copies of this report be communicated to the several State 

 societies and agricultural colleges of the United States, and they be re- 

 quested to communicate their action in regard to the proposed relations 

 to the National Department of Agriculture, and of the persons appointed 

 as organs of communication. 



This report was accepted, and referred to the Department of Agricul- 

 ture. 



A resolution, i^resented by Senator Morrill, of Vermont, favoring a 

 donation of laud, or the proceeds of land, sufficient to found a professor- 

 ship of one of the branches of practical science in the land-grant colleges, 

 and the assignment to each, by the War Department, of an officer of the 

 Army competent to give mathematical and military instruction, was 

 adopted. 



General N. IST. Halstead, of New Jersey, offered a resolution recom- 

 mending a provision by State and county agricultural societies, for a 

 scholarship in agricultural colleges for each county, and also a provi- 

 sion on the part of agricultural colleges, requiring a satisfactory exam- 

 ination of students by a committee of practical farmers, before a diploma 

 can be given, which was also adopted. 



A resolution offered by Mr. J. N. Sturtevant, of Massachusetts, com- 

 mending the plan of the agricultural and economic museum of the 

 Department to the agricultural colleges of the country, was adopted. 

 Also, one presented by Professor 0. V. Eiley, of Missouri, asking an 

 appropriation to enable the Departineut of Agriculture to publish the 

 illustrated work of its entomologist, Towneud Glover, on insects ; and 

 an annual appropriation of not les^ than $10,000 for defraying the cost 

 of experiments in the destruction of noxious insects, to bo made by 

 the different State boards throughout the country. 



Prof. Hunter Nicholson, of Tennessee, chairman of the committee on 

 experimental stations, reported a resolution instructing Professor S. W. 

 Johnston, of Yale College, to make an investigation of the workings ot 

 experimental stations in Europe, and report further upon their character 

 and value, and the practicability of their establishment in this country, 

 as an aid to scientific agriculture. Adopted. 



A resolution was adopted recommending the increase of the salary of 



