ANNUAL REPORT. xi 



The Board of Agriculture voted at its annual meeting 

 that it was desirable to have the inspection of fertilizers 

 transferred from the Board of Agriculture to the Board of 

 Control of the Experiment Station, and a committee was 

 appointed to ask the Legislature to make the necessary 

 changes. 



The country meeting at Springfield was attended by a 

 large audience of interested farmers. The able papers pi-e- 

 sented at that time will be bound with this report. 



The Agricultural College, of which the Board of Agricult- 

 ure are by statute made overseers, and the secretary a trus- 

 tee, ex officio, seems to have entered upon a career of 

 prosperity. The farming community of the State is now in 

 sympathy with its management. The college was founded 

 " to promote the liberal and practical education of the indus- 

 trial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life." 

 The income of these classes, as a rule, is not large enough to 

 enable their young men to bear the necessary exjjense of a 

 college course. These young men have been brought up to 

 useful labor, and would be ghid to work their way through 

 college. Student labor, sporadic as it must necessarily be, 

 can be profitably employed for only a small part of the reg- 

 ular farm work. But there is an abundant field for the em- 

 ployment of such labor in the improvement of the farm and 

 buildings, the making of walks and the cultivation of trees 

 and shrubs, for the illustration of arboriculture and the 

 adornment of the college grounds. These improvements 

 would do honor to the State. There are no funds that can 

 be expended for these purposes. The report of the trustees 

 of the college suggests the annual appropriation by the Leg- 

 islature of a moderate sum, to be known as a •' labor fund," 

 the same to be expended for these purposes. I l)elieve the 

 agricultural population of the State are heartily in favor of 

 such an arrangement. 



WILLIAM R. SESSIONS, 



Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture. 

 Boston, February, 1888. 



