22 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



to give the college about two cents per each inhabitant for the years 1875 and 1876 each, in 

 place of the 1 cent asked, improvements could go forward more rapidly. 



In place of $419,000 in 18 years, Pennsylvania gave its Agricultural College $207,599 in 

 four years ; Massachusetts, 313,000 in seven years ; Illinois, $235,300 in five years ; and the 

 young Iowa College has already received from the State $329,480. These sums are propor- 

 tionally much greater than the appropriations made for like periods to the Michigan Agri- 

 cultural College. 



The appropriations for current expenses in 1873 and 1874 were intended to supplement 

 the interest of the college fund. This was taken at Governor Baldwin's estimates, which, 

 owing te financial troubles occurring afterwards, were several thousand dollars greater than 

 we received. The improvements at the college were curtailed therefore to that extent. As 

 the college fund increases by the sale of lands, the appropriations to be made by the State! 

 will lessen, until at last only sums requisite for the erection and repair of buildings will be 

 required. 



I do not present the agricultural college as a piece of perfection. Probably no persons are 

 more pained by its great lacks than the board and officers that manage it. But I present it 

 to you as growing. It has come out of the forest, out of a surrounding of stumps and 

 swamps, and puts on, in summer time at least, a face of beauty. Its students constantly in- 

 crease in numbers, and honor it with their reverence and love. They go forth inspired 

 with enthusiasm for scientific study, and with fixed habits of industry. Many of them 

 carry this enthusiasm and these habits back to farms on which they live. They give labor 

 its due honor ; and we crave the hearty sympathy and counsel of the class for which we 

 chiefly labor. 



In establishing any other school of learning the officers and students would settle down to 

 quiet work, hoping to show the results in the good education the students that leave them 

 would exhibit. We have probably done too much the same, forgetting that while law, 

 medicine, engineering, the classics, all have found their methods, we had also not only to 

 invent a school, but to hold the interest of the farmers and the public who look to it, by a 

 free publication of everything done here. In the reports for 1873 and 1874 I have put more 

 of the reports of the departments, as made to me, than has been done before, and more 

 still can be given hereafter, if desirable. And I hope the way will be open to the establish- 

 ment of the highest degree of confidence between the college and all who are interested in 

 its work. 



EXPERIMENTS. 



In response to a letter of inquiry from S. L. Kilbourne, representative in the legislature 

 from this district, the following was written by Prof. Joseph Harris of Rochester, N. Y. 

 It is dated at Moreton Farm, near that city, Feb. 26, 1875. Prof. Harris is an able scientific 

 man and a good practical farmer. In England he was with Lawesand Gilbert, the celebrated 

 agricultural experimenters. In this country he gained a high reputation as the editor of the 

 Genesee Farmer, and he is now better known as the author of " Walks and Talks," in the 

 American Agriculturist. From these papers he receives a higher price for agricultural 

 articles than any other writer in the country. Prof. Harris is not only a sound scientific 

 man and an able writer, but he is also one of the best practical farmers in Western New 

 York. His letter to Mr. Kilbourne is as follows : 



" 1 have had some experience in conducting systematic agricultural experiments, both on 

 crops and animals, and have given the subject a good deal of thought. 



" When I was appointed professor of agriculture in the Cornell University I visited the 

 Michigan Agricultural College for the purpose of examining their methods of conducting 

 experiments. I wanted to see what they were doing and how they did it. I thought if the 

 different agricultural colleges would work together on some general plan we need not go 

 over the same ground or cross each other's paths. I still think it would be wise to adopt 

 such a course. But as yet our agricultural colleges, taken as a whole, have done very little 

 for agriculture. I am not disposed to criticise. We expected too much from them. At our 

 lairs and agricultural meetings, if some one asked whether salt was a good manure for wheat, 



