346 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Agricultural Institute, which was authorized to hold $50,000 

 of real and personal estate " for the purpose of establishing, 

 in some one of the towns lying on the banks of the Connec- 

 ticut River, or in a town immediately adjoining such towns, 

 an agricultural school and experimental farm, the object of 

 whom shall be instruction in agricultural science, and im- 

 provements in all the arts connected with the practice of 

 farming." The management of the affairs of the corporation 

 was to be entrusted to a board of seven trustees, five of 

 whom were to be elected by the corporation, and the other 

 two to be appointed by the Governor and Council. The cor- 

 poration was to make an annual report to the Legislature, 

 in January, of its progress and the number of its pupils, the 

 condition of its finances, the general course of instruction 

 adopted and pursued, and the results of its agricultural 

 experiments. 



This legislation appears to have been the outcome of an 

 order presented to the House of Representatives l)y Mr. 

 Hubbard of Sunderland, on Jan. 29, 1848, which provided 

 that the committee on Agriculture be instructed to inquire 

 into the expediency of making provision for the establish- 

 ment of a State agricultural school, or of providing for the 

 maintenance of an agricultural department in connection 

 with one or more of the existing colleges of the Common- 

 wealth. 



On Feb. 5, 1848, a petition was presented to the Legisla- 

 ture, in which it was stated that at the annual meeting of 

 the Hampshire, Franklin and Hampden Agi'icultural Society 

 (Northampton), in the month of October, 1847, it was — 



Voted, That this society make application to the next Legis- 

 lature for the endowment of an Institution in the Connecticut 

 Valley, for instruction in the various departments of agricul- 

 tural science. 



At a meeting of the Hampden Agricultural Society, at 

 Springfield, Feb. 24, 1848, it was — 



Voted, That this society approve of the institution of an 

 Agricultural School, to be established in the interior of the 



