368 AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT -V 



erection of new farm-buildings after English patterns, 

 Mr. Cornell generously advancing the required money. 



All this took time much time. At first great things 

 were expected by the farmers of the State, but gradually 

 their confidence waned. As they saw the new professor 

 walking over the farm in a dilettantish way, superin- 

 tending operations with gloved hands, and never touching 

 any implement, doubts arose which soon ripened into 

 skepticism. Typical were the utterances of our farm man- 

 ager. He was a plain, practical farmer, who had taken the 

 first prize of the State Agricultural Society for the excel- 

 lence of his own farm; and, though he at first indulged 

 in high hopes regarding the new professor, he soon had 

 misgivings, and felt it his duty to warn me. He said: 

 i i Yew kin depend on 't, he ain 't a-goin ' to do nothin ' ; he 

 don't know nothin' about corn, and he don't want to 

 know nothin' about corn; and he don't believe in pun- 

 Jcins! Depend on 't, as soon as his new barn is finished 

 and all his new British tackle is brought together, he '11 

 quit the job." I reasoned that, to a farmer brought up 

 among the glorious fields of Indian corn in western New 

 York, and accustomed to rejoice in the sight of golden 

 pumpkins, diffusion of other cultures must seem like trea- 

 son ; but, alas ! he was right. As soon as the new buildings 

 and arrangements were ready for our trial of British sci- 

 entific agriculture, the young foreign professor notified 

 me that he had accepted the headship of an agricultural 

 college in Canada. Still, he met with no greater success 

 there than with us ; nor was his reputation increased when, 

 after the foul attacks made upon Mr. Cornell in the legis- 

 lature, he volunteered to come to the investigation and 

 testify that Mr. Cornell was "not a practical man." In 

 this the career of the young agriculturist culminated. 

 Having lost his professorship in Canada, he undertook 

 the management of a grocery in the oil-regions of west- 

 ern Pennsylvania; and scientific British agriculture still 

 awaits among us a special representative. Happily, since 

 that day, men trained practically in the agriculture of the 



