176 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



college was broached here, the debate began. It was somewhat 

 astonishing, that notwithstanding Massachusetts had spent upon 

 Harvard College, from its inception and infancy, almost down 

 to this very hour, hundreds of thousands of dollars from her 

 own treasury, and from the private pockets of her citizens as 

 much more ; notwithstanding she had endowed every scientific 

 institution within her limits ; had bestowed upon Williams Col- 

 lege her bounty ; upon Amherst College her bounty ; upon 

 Tufts College her bounty ; and upon almost every female 

 academy, upon the School of Technology, and upon the Museum 

 of Natural History, a liberal share of her wealth ; the instant 

 an institution was put into her own hands for her own govern- 

 ment and her own development, she not only began to pause 

 herself, but her most enterprising and liberal citizens began to 

 pause also. It is difficult, my friends, to account for this. An 

 institution which is the only one, as you were told this morning, 

 that Massachusetts can claim as her own — an institution which 

 is intended for the development of the foundation of all her in- 

 terests — an institution which is bound to develop that knowl- 

 edge upon which the best practical farming of this State can 

 rest — an institution which, if fully developed, will redound to 

 her honor and her wealth as much as any other institution 

 within her own limits, and which, by accepting the bounty of 

 the United States and the bounty of the town of Amherst, she 

 has bound herself to support until it arrives at its entire and 

 full completion — is met by the most formidable opposition. 



This, gentlemen, is the Agricultural College of Massachusetts 

 - — a school in which, as we believe, the farmers of this Com- 

 monwealth can arrive at what might be called a practice-scien- 

 tific knowledge of the business of agriculture. I am not, how- 

 ever, surprised at the opposition which this institution has met 

 with. The farming of Massachusetts has not been unsuccess- 

 ful in all time past, by any manner of means. The rules that 

 have been laid down here for successful farming have been 

 wrung by intelligent and skilful farmers out of the very soil 

 upon which the population of Massachusetts now treads. The 

 best crops that have been grown here in times past are due to 

 their intelligence and their industry. The whole development 

 of the wealth of this Commonwealth, seventy-five years ago, 

 was in the hands of the farmers. I doubt if at that time Berk- 



