PRIMARY AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 273 



water-works and an ice-pond, grading yards, and making 

 roads, putting in foundations for sheds, hog-house, swill- 

 house, tool-house, chair-shop, boiler-house and chimney, 

 hauling bricks for the same, raising the old barn and grading 

 around the same, etc., etc., without the farm's receiving one 

 dollar of credit for any of these improvements. 



I have prepared this statement and submit it for your con- 

 sideration for a twofold purpose : first, to call the attention 

 of the State Board of Agriculture and the farmers of Massa- 

 chusetts to this farm and school ; to awaken a deeper interest 

 in the management of this farm, its crops, and its stock, and 

 to let them know what is being done in the way of farming 

 at this primary agricultural college of Massachusetts, which 

 is sending out yearly over a hundred boys, most of whom will 

 become tillers of the soil and laborers on the farm, and 

 shortly will be the farmers of the coming generation ; and 

 second, to meet, with figures that will not lie, the cavillings and 

 carpings of those who are constantly asserting that farming 

 don't pay, that no institution can manage a farm to profit, 

 that milk can be bought cheaper than it can be made, and 

 answer the thousand and one foolish positions taken by those 

 who make most positive assertions about what they know 

 little or nothing. 



o 



Mr. Root, of Barre. I have listened with a great deal of 

 gratification to the very clear and accurate statement which the 

 worthy superintendent of the ]\Ionson school has given us. I 

 feel that he has done a service to the farmers of Massachu- 

 setts in making this clear and lucid statement of the manage- 

 ment of that institution. AYe as farmers desire to know 

 more of the general mode of procedure at our public insti- 

 tutions, and more of the general expenditure which is in- 

 curred at those institutions. I feel grateful to the gentleman 

 for making the statements which he has made to-day. 



Afternoon Session. 



The meeting was called to order at two o'clock, Hon. J. 

 F. C. Hyde in the chair. 



35 



