56 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



In the first place, I find there is a great deal of ignorance in 

 relation to the institution. Why, a man who has a son in the 

 institution told mc in this room, to-night, that he had hardly 

 any idea that there was such an institution in the State, or that 

 there was to be one, before his son started to go to Amherst. 

 It is so, generally, throughout the Commonwealth. The people 

 have had no idea that we were really to have an Agricultural 

 College, notwithstanding the talk there has been about it, and 

 notwithstanding the money that has been appropriated for it. 

 They have had the idea that there would be no college ; that it 

 was all talk, and nothing else. Now, gentlemen, I can say that 

 there is an Agricultural College in Massachusetts. In the first 

 place, it is located, as you know, in the town of Amherst. We 

 have there, in my judgment, a beautiful farm for the institution, 

 of 400 acres, finely located in the valley of the Connecticut, 

 with a great variety of soil. We have alluvial soil, with clay 

 underlying it ; we have soil of a lighter cast, with quartz under- 

 lying it ; we have soil entirely free from stone, and soil like 

 some of your Middlesex County farms which we have passed 

 through to-day, covered with stone, and hard and difficii^t of 

 cultivation. The land is rolling, interspersed with brooks and 

 streams ; bounded on one side by quite a river, and there are 

 numerous springs upon the land, giving us great water privi- 

 leges. These will necessitate a large amount of under-draining. 

 The soil is fertile — there is no mistake about that. It is well 

 adapted to the growth of corn and rye. Wheat and tobacco, 

 (which is contraband so far as the farm is concerned,) grow on 

 that soil finely. The farm, although not very productive, is yet 

 a farm which, on the whole, has never been run out or abused 

 by over-cropping. Very few of those acres have been over- 

 cropped, and are what we call exhausted land. The trouble is, 

 it has been neglected. It is covered with brush. Last spring 

 there was a hedge about twelve feet wide all along the fenced 

 part of the farm, giving it a very offensive aspect, which disap- 

 peared as if by magic, the present year. I say, therefore, we 

 have got a farm, we have got a college, and we have the 

 encouraging feeling that we may possibly succeed. 



Another thing — which I should have said first — we are 

 located in a spot entirely accessible to all God's creation. It 

 has been said that you could not get to Amherst ; or, if you 



