close study in Botany, Animal Physiology, Geology and Chemistry, 

 without its telling ultimately on the progress of agriculture ? 



But suppose that not one student was even thus educated : I 

 maintain that the State and Nation would receive more than the 

 equivalent of its endowment. 



Look at a few figures. The last census gives certain agricul- 

 tural statistics, whose magnitude is almost oppressive. The value 

 of farm productions in the United States, in the year 1870, was 

 considerably over two thousand millions of dollars. 



The value of farm productions in the State of New York, the 

 same year, was over two hundred and fifty millions of dollars. 



Does not common sense teach us that we can well afford to make 

 a little outlay to promote any sciences which may help such a vast 

 interest ? If, in the course of years, in all these laboratories and 

 experiments, some one useful idea shall be struck out, it would pay 

 our endowments a thousand fold. 



Says Emerson : " The true poet is an inspired prophet." Did 

 you ever think what an inspiration lies in the poet's declaration that 

 *' the greatest benefactor of mankind is he who makes two blades 

 of grass grow where one grew before ?" If not, look at the census 

 returns showing the enormous value of the hay crop of these 

 Northern States. 



Knowledge of nature, coming by research and observation in the 

 laboratory and the field these are to give us finally our " two 

 blades of grass," and multitudes of other benefactions to our race, 

 not less precious. 



The Sheffield Scientific School, at Yale College, has not a single 

 student in agriculture ; but Professors Brewer and Johnson, by their 

 experiments on fertilizers and kindred subjects, have returned the 

 value of their endowment to the nation a hundred fold already. 



Take another item. The dairy products of New York, in 1870, 

 were over one hundred million pounds of butter, and over twenty 

 million pounds of cheese. Now, there has been quietly at work in 

 our laboratory of Agricultural Chemistry, at Cornell University, 

 a young professor, Mr. George C. Caldwell. He has made little 

 noise in the*vorld, but has worked quietly on upon the chemistry 

 of the dairy. Said Mr. L. B. Arnold, an authority you all rec- 

 ognize : " Professor CaldweJFs researches on the chemistry of the 



