1891.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 249 



day to inspecting the farm, etc. Individual members of the 

 committee have made special visits also during the year. 

 To those of us who have been familiar with this farm from 

 the beginning, the many improvements which have been 

 made, especially during recent years, are most gratifying. 

 That portion of the farm lying west of the college buildings, 

 a large portion of which was once a swampy waste, is fast 

 being made to bud and blossom like the rose. Here truly 

 the Agricultural College comes under Dean Swift's definition 

 of a public benefactor: "He who maketh two blades of 

 grass to grow where but one grew before, is himself a public 

 benefactor." 



As we walked over this portion of the farm, and noted 

 the .system of underdraining there adopted by Professor 

 Brooks, we appreciated the fact that here was an object 

 lesson for the college students, where a practical illustration 

 of the subject of underdraining could be seen, and thus 

 impressed upon the mind more emphatically than any amount 

 of mere word instruction could possibly do ; an object lesson, 

 not for these only, but also for every visiting farmer who 

 avails himself of the opportunity. The same may be said of 

 the model portable fence which we found there ; of the 

 different crops which we saw growing upon the farm ; of the 

 experiments being made to show the relative value of potash, 

 phosphoric acid and nitrogen for crops upon the soil of the 

 college farm ; of the experiments being made with buck- 

 wheat, mustard, etc., as late-grown crops for ploughing 

 under ; and of many other ways which we observed, but will 

 not take space to enumerate. We could but notice the 

 splendid crops of corn nearly ready for the silo, also the 

 crops of potatoes, beets, squashes, etc., all of which showed 

 that intelligent care and cultivation becoming the circum- 

 stances. On going to the barn, we took special notice of 

 the silo ; as a matter of practical use, it seems to us that 

 this silo is a model for the New England farmer. It is 

 hardly within the province of this report to give a detailed 

 description of it, other than to say that it is of wood structure 

 after the most approved pattern, and is lined with a coating 

 of coal tar, from which the volatile oils have been burned. 

 This forms a hard, glossy, cheap and seemingly indestructible 



