90 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



you have very heavy soil and you want the action of the frost 

 on it. 



Mr. CoLLiNGwooD. My objection is this : some of my 

 land is level, but on a slope, and I do not want it washed if 

 I can help it. Again, my experience has been that when we 

 take the cow-pea and plough it under it is liable to sour in 

 the ground. There is so much water in the rank and heavy 

 stems that they start up a fermentation unless a person uses 

 lime constantly. For that reason I -svould rather leave it on 

 the ground until spring. I do not believe in ploughing it in 

 in the fall unless it is on very heavy soil. I would use the 

 plough on heavy soil, but I have none of that soil. 



Secretary Sessions. I noticed, in the remarks of Mr. Col- 

 lingwood, what might be considered a slur on agricultural 

 colleges. He said he would rather have a young man without 

 any ideas than one from a college. 



Mr. CoLLiNGWooD. I stand here a graduate of the Michi- 

 gan Agricultural College, class of 1883, and I thank God 

 to-day that I took that course at that college. I want to give 

 you just one leaf out of my life, and tell you what induced 

 me to take that course. When I ran away, I was thirteen 

 years old. I went to school two terms after that, then went 

 to work. When I w^as nineteen I drifted to Colorado as a 

 cow boy on a ranch, and one day there on the plains I saw 

 two old men talkino- too-ether and going over their lives. 

 One was a man of wealth. He had ten or fifteen thousand 

 head of cattle. The other was a poor man. The rich man 

 could barely sign his name. The poor man had a college 

 education. And I tell you, as I saw those two men there 

 at the evening of life, side by side, and compared them, the 

 thought came into my mind, What is life after forty-five or 

 fifty years? And I made up my mind then I would go 

 through fire and water if need be to educate myself, and that 

 was how I happened to go to the agricultural college. I 

 went there because that college offered me a chance to work 

 my way through. I milked cows, waited on tables, washed 

 dishes, tried to teach a district school and was thrown out, 

 but I went back again. When we get out of a college we 

 have to unlearn some things. I had to unlearn this, the fact 

 that at the college we had everything in first-class shape, 



