12 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



a cultivated community there are superior minds growing 

 up out of the influence of the abstract cultivation itself. 

 Now, the college has done that for this community, and 

 may do more ; and I trust we shall all see the time when 

 a professor analagous to a professor of the theory and 

 practice of medicine will be considered as the corner-stone 

 of the agricultural college of this Commonwealth. I have 

 no doubt young men come out of the school better prepared 

 for agricultural service than they were when they went in 

 there ; but when they come out so imbued with the theory 

 of agriculture and so taught in regard to its practice that 

 they will enable you to conduct your farming operations 

 here under their guidance with economy, accuracy and skill, 

 then the purpose of that college, as those of us anticipated 

 who were active in its foundation, will be thoroughly ful- 

 filled. Now, while the college is engaged in this work, the 

 Board in these meetings is engaged in other work by bring- 

 ing practical farmers together, so that they themselves may 

 accept the doctrines laid down at the college, and be better 

 enabled to carry home to the communities from which they 

 come the results of those teachings, not only in the facts or 

 rules of agriculture, but in the general business of stimulat- 

 ing the agricultural mind of the Commonwealth. I therefore 

 congratulate the Board upon the result of these meetings, 

 for the foundation of which I labored so diligently and with 

 so much entire confidence in the success of the enterprise. 



I have not been enabled to do a great many useful things 

 in my agricultural life. I have endeavored to improve the 

 breeds of cattle and horses of the Commonwealth by the in- 

 troduction of well-approved blood into our herds and studs, 

 not always with the success I had hoped for. I have endeav- 

 ored to persuade the farmers that corn-fodder was not 

 quite what it ought to be, unless grown to some maturity, 

 and have advanced various views, some sound and some un- 

 sound, I suppose ; but there is one good thing I have done, 

 I am confident, and I propose to impress it upon your mind, 

 — and that is, the foundation of these country meetings that 

 bring the farmers themselves together, and place them along- 

 side of the intellectual activities of the colleges themselves. 

 I think the Board, the country meetings, and the college, 



