SECRETARY'S REPORT. 265 



The pupils range from seventeen to twenty-two years of age. 

 They prefer that they would not enter under twenty. The land 

 is rich and under a high state of cultivation, as it ought to be, 

 to enable the institution to pay so high a rent. 



Every thing about the farm-buildings is plain and substantial. 

 The whole establishment, in fact, has an air of practical work. 

 The dining-room is hung with the drawings and lithographs of 

 prize animals. One end of it is used for a collection of imple- 

 ments, seeds, minerals, &c., — all labelled. The school-room is 

 furnished with plain, hard seats, vastly inferior in ease and 

 comfort to those in any of our improved school-rooms ; and 

 hung with charts, maps, &c. It has various kinds of apparatus, 

 thermometer, barometer ; rain-gauge, on the outside of the 

 window, &c. ; globes, celestial and terrestrial, &c. The chemi- 

 cal laboratory is small and ill-supplied, compared with the same 

 in most of tlie large schools on the continent, but probably suffi- 

 cient for the limited instruction in this department. 



The farm does not wholly support tlie institution. It would 

 be unreasonable to expect it, with the high rent it has to pay, 

 and the small amount required of the pupils, which covers 

 board, washing, tuition, &c. I was told, the additional cost per 

 pupil to the government was twenty-four pounds a year. But 

 the farm itself, not charging it with the labor of the boys, shows 

 a considerable balance in its favor. 



The stock kept on both farms is, usually, seven horses, about 

 fifty cows and young stock, two bulls, from forty to sixty sheep, 

 and forty to fifty swine. The cows are mostly grade Shorthorns. 

 There were two pure Ayrshires and one Kerry. They find that 

 nothing exceeds a three-quarters Shortiiorn for profit, when the 

 product in milk and the economy of fattening afterwards is 

 considered. From a three-quarters Shorthorn and one-quarter 

 Irish cow, they get large yields. The bulls are worked in tlie 

 fields, and this is thought to improve them. The pigs are 

 Yorkshires and Berkshires, They are washed about once a 

 week. The Berkshires are the most hardy, and can endure 

 considerable rough usage ; while the Yorkshires are a little 

 tender, and are not so good nurses. 



The price of ordinary dairy cows in this neighborhood is from 

 twelve to fifteen pounds, or from sixty to seventy-five dollars ; 

 3i* 



