246 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



tinctly as it is in other technical institutions. The sciences 

 relating to one line of study and their application to the 

 practice of one calling or profession is the central idea of 

 the successful school or college to-day, — the success of the 

 practice depending upon the breadth and thoroughness of 

 that education. 



We, the Board of Agriculture, must ever stand, as strongly 

 as our powers permit, against any change in its line of teach- 

 ing or its distinctive name. We have every reason to be 

 proud of it. Its faculty are above reproach, its teachers are 

 able and ample for the work. The lands, the buildings, the 

 experiment station, the botanical department, the insectary, 

 are models for instruction, and the beneficent results to the 

 agriculture of the State, the country and the world are 

 already its fruits. To-day it is our college, founded under 

 our auspices, nurtured by this Board, watched over by it, and 

 it must not be taken from our care just as it approaches 

 its most perfect development, nor changed in its curriculum, 

 nor hindered in its good results. 



Its situation is ideal ; the atmosphere of the town is pure 

 as the air from the hills among which it rests. The location 

 of the buildings is artistic, and a view of the college green 

 and of the more distant landscape from the hill in the east is 

 most beautiful and inspiring. Before us is the lovely and 

 fertile Connecticut valley, guarded by those twin sentinels 

 of beauty, Mt. Tom and Mt. Holyoke, while the extended 

 vision takes in the Berkshire hills, with old Greylock 

 looking proudly down upon its surrounding mountains. 

 More northerly the beauty of Franklin County, with Mt. 

 Sugar Loaf and Mt. Toby, holds the eye, till, reaching 

 beyond, it catches the dim outlines of the Green Mountain 

 range. 



Brothers of the Board, let us cherish this institution, let 

 us nourish by a more active interest this college. It is yet 

 young, but its present is fruitful and its promise of future 

 usefulness is grand and inspiring. Agriculture is the pro- 

 ductive industry on which the prosperity of the State and 

 nation must ever depend, and this college by its work is not 

 only fitting men for future usefulness in every industrial 

 calling and profession, but by its investigations and experi- 



