104 MICHIGAN STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 



few men, and these were men whose interest in farming was, in 

 large part, a public interest. George Washington was one of 

 the earliest and one of the most influential of these. First in 

 war and first in peace, he was also, it would seem, the first 

 American farmer of his day. His outlook over the educational 

 needs of the new nation included proposals for the establishment 

 of boards of agriculture, a military academy, and a national 

 university. Other statesmen with a care for agriculture and 

 other farmers who were statesmen in their view urged that prac- 

 tical provision be made for the collection and dissemination 

 of agricultural information. In the opinion of these men it was 

 information that was chiefly needed — information regarding the 

 experience and experiments of those who were already most 

 advanced in the practice of agriculture — to insure the general 

 improvement of the farming industry. The new awakening in 

 European agriculture had great influence among the leaders of 

 American agriculture at this time. 



It was while we were still under the Articles of Confederation 

 that a beginning was made in the formation of agricultural 

 societies. Pennsylvania and South Carolina had established 

 such societies before the adoption of the Constitution. New 

 York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut followed during Washing- 

 ton's administration. The publications of these societies had 

 begun to appear before the close of the eighteenth century, and 

 agricultural fairs came into being in the first decades of the 

 nineteenth century. Various endeavors to secure the establish- 

 ment of a national board of agriculture had led, before the day 

 that we here celebrate, to the first seed distributions through the 

 national Patent Office, and to the first separate agricultural 

 appropriation, in 1854. 



Through these several movements, supplemented by a 

 comparatively early development of an agricultural periodical 

 literature, and through many later developments of agricul- 

 tural organization, the growth of interest in the improvement of 



