146 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



students, that company is at the Massachusetts Agricultural 

 College. They are loyal to the purpose for which the college 

 stands, and they appreciate the privileges that they enjoy 

 there. But here is what one of these students in the junior 

 class wrote : — 



Here [that is, at the college] the science of agriculture, in its 

 broadest and highest sense, finds not only a home, but also able 

 expounders and defenders of its position and usefulness. Situated 

 as it is, with every variety of soil, from lowland to upland, from 

 marsh and meadow to rocky hillside, this college is perhaps better 

 fitted for the study of the science of agriculture than any other 

 agricultural college in the world. 



As I was criticising these essays of the students, when I 

 came to that sentence I was not able to say whether the stu- 

 dent was right in that position. There are some here in this 

 audience probably who can say whether the student was right 

 in that statement. At any rate, I let it pass. I did not 

 criticise it. I thought he was right when he said that " this 

 college," the Massachusetts Agricultural College — 



Is perhaps better fitted for the study of the science of agriculture 

 than any other agricultural college in the world. Here we find the 

 farm raised to its proper position in the list of capital stock, and 

 the farmer as much a business man as the merchant or lawyer. 

 Here we find the old idea that " anybody can run a farm " a mis- 

 taken one, and that the successful management of a farm requires 

 as much business ability, prudence, economy, judgment and prac- 

 tical knowledge of things as any other buying or selling business. 

 Here the student sees the practical fai-m operations going on 

 around him every day of his college course. His advantages in 

 the study of agriculture are many and valuable. He hears the 

 theoretical side brought out in the lecture-room. He sees the idea 

 of the lecture-room brought into practice on the farm and at the 

 barn. He finds at the Hatch Experiment Station experiments 

 always in progress, proving theories, exploding mistaken notions 

 and " old fogy " ideas, reaching out into the mysteries of life and 

 decay, discovering new facts, revealing new truths, and doing 

 humanity and the farmer a vast amount of good. Or he can go to 

 work and learn by actual experience the use of machine tools, the 

 methods of farming used and the results obtained. Then for his 

 rainy days there is the college library always open and well stocked 



