FINDINGS IN BKIEF. 



The agricultural and educational conditions in this Common- 

 wealth are believed to warrant the following conclusions : - 



1. Farming in Massachusetts is a highly important vocation. 



2. Massachusetts farming, where most profitably practiced, is 

 peculiarly dependent upon, and responsive to, scientific knowl- 

 edge and improved methods. Its increasing diversity and spe- 

 cialization, which are such promising elements in its progress, 

 make more difficult the task of preparation for it, and make 

 more emphatic the duty of the State to the boys and girls who 

 are to follow it. 



3. Agencies for carrying scientific knowledge and improved 

 methods to adults, and to students of such age and preliminary 

 training as to enable them to meet the usual college entrance 

 requirements, appear to have been both carefully considered 

 and fairly well established. 



4. There is a decided lack of, and a pronounced demand for, 

 agricultural training of a scientific and very practical character, 

 suitable for boys, and perhaps for some girls, fourteen years of 

 age and older, who expect to gain their livelihood from, and to 

 spend their lives on, Massachusetts farms. 



5. The growing commercial and industrial school facilities 

 open to boys and girls fourteen years of age and older, tend to 

 lure away from the land and into the congested centers, in the 

 absence of competent and attractive agricultural education, 

 many young people whose natural aptitudes would make them, if 

 properly trained, better and more prosperous citizens in the 

 country. 



6. Financial aid for agricultural education, suitable for 

 adults and for college students, has for a half-century been fur- 

 nished by this Commonwealth and by the federal government. 

 State aid for vocational training of secondary grade in agricul- 

 ture, is, moreover, entirely in keeping with State aid for inde- 

 pendent industrial school work, and to some extent was provided 

 for by chapter 505 of the Acts of 1906 and chapter 572 of the 

 Acts of 1908. 



7. The slow development of secondary agricultural schools, 

 the testimony of farmers throughout the State, and the demand 



