54 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



other institution. But I think that a fund very much larger 

 than is ordinarily supposed to be necessary would be found 

 requisite in order to establish an institution which should be of 

 any great advantage or any credit to the Commen wealth. Had 

 it been thought proper to have taken measures to put the 

 Bussey Institute into operation, and to make that fund available 

 immediately, then the scrip which was given by the United 

 States to the Commonwealth, might have been easily enough 

 withheld from the market until it could bring a price propor- 

 tionate to its real value ; and in the meantime, the institution 

 might have been set into operation immediately and its fund 

 enlarged by the aggregations from time to time derivable from 

 the proceeds of the sales of the land scrip. That, however, was 

 not the view which met the approbation of the legislature, and, 

 perhaps, not of the people of the Commonwealth, and it has not 

 been undertaken. The Bussey Institute, however, will some- 

 time or other, of necessity, become a living and active institution. 

 As soon as the life shall terminate of the person who holds the 

 life estate in the Bussey family, it will then become the duty of 

 the corporation of Harvard College, either directly, or indirectly 

 through other persons or societies, to incorporate that institu- 

 tion. There will be a farm of some three hundred acres, as 

 Mr. Flint has mentioned, in a very high state of cultivation, 

 with a great many of tlie means and appliances of elegant as 

 well as useful, valuable and productive farming, the proceeds of 

 which will form a fund out of which the lecturers, professors, 

 and other expenses of an institution of learning can be main- 

 tained. In the meantime, nothing having been done by that 

 institution, there is at present no practical work of that sort 

 open to the farmers of the Commonwealth, as far as I know, 

 except to do their best to render efficient the institution which 

 is no'w called the Agricultural College of Massachusetts. 



Evening Session. — The Board met according to adjournment, 

 and Leander Wetherell, Esq., of Boston, delivered a valuable 

 lecture on Agricultural Botany, which was listened to with 

 great attention by a large and intelligent audience. 



On motion of I)r. Loring, the thanks of the Board were 

 presented to Mr. Wetherell for his interesting lecture, and the 

 meeting adjourned to Wednesday morning, at 10 o'clock. 



