THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 19 



all, is to be had in the beginning, and we have taken and occu- 

 pied it, and it is ours for the good of the agriculture of Massa- 

 chusetts. So that this Board has not merely a name now, but a 

 local habitation. We have a farm ; and this farm is not only in 

 a place in other respects suitaljle, but we are here where we can 

 enjoy the advantages of an institution of learning, which can 

 be, which has been, which will be, of immense value to this 

 college. Consider two or three points. In the first place, we 

 want occasional lectures — men to give ten, twenty or thirty lec- 

 tures upon subjects of literature or science. If we were 

 obliged to go abroad and employ men to come here, we should 

 have to pay them more than double what we pay to the professors 

 who are on the ground, and are in every respect competent men. 



Again, we have here in Amherst College, — the power and 

 wealth of which none of you know so well as I do, — it is a 

 power to-day but it is to be a much greater power, — we have in 

 Amherst College, I say, a library of between thirty and forty 

 thousand volumes. The college is about erecting a library 

 building at a cost of $50,000. It has a fund given by Hon. 

 David Sears, of Boston, which is to amount to $50,000, the 

 income of which is to be used forever in the purchase of books. 

 Now, what has been done for us here in this work ? There is a 

 library open to the students of the Agricultural College on the 

 very same terms as to the students of Amherst College. How 

 long would it take us to get thirty or forty thousand volumes, a 

 man to take care of them, and a building for them ? 



Then, again, scientific collections are indispensable to the 

 successful pursuit of the natural sciences, and scientific collec- 

 tions are the work of years, and require an immense amount of 

 money and labor, and such labor as few men are disposed to 

 ' give. The cabinets of Amherst College, put up at auction, 

 would sell to-day for more than $100,000, and they represent 

 the life-labor of three or four of the most talented men in 

 Massachusetts. Dr. Hitclicock seems to the observer of to-day 

 to have spent his life in breaking rocks and piling them up in 

 Amherst College. Prof. Shepherd has spent forty years, and 

 all the money he could save on a salary of $5,000 a year, upon 

 his mineralogical and meteorological cabinets. Prof. Adams 

 gave up his life, a sacrifice to his devotion to his favorite science. 

 Three times he went to St. Thomas, and when they told him he 



