Let us hope that some day there will be erected on the campus 

 a statue to his memory, or, better still, a building which shall be 

 known as " Stockbridge Hall," for the agricultural department, in 

 which shall be placed a tablet, stating in simple terms what he did 

 for the College and for the young men who came under his benefi- 

 cent influence. The impetus and the stimulus which he gave to our 

 lives by his splendid manhood and buoyant, hopeful outlook on life, 

 have left their imprint upon us all, and are an inheritance which we 

 shall hand on to those who come after us. The bright, cheery boy 

 from the Hadley farm, self-taught, lives not only in this institution, 

 but in the lives and character of hundreds of students who remember 

 him and ever will remember him as " dear old Prof. Stock," whom 

 they all loved. 



If I were asked what was Stockbridge's greatest contribution 

 to agriculture, I should say that it was not his formulas for crop 

 feeding by which he is so widely known ; for, useful as these were, 

 they were but stepping stones to a better knowledge of the object 

 and use of fertilizers. His greatest contribution to agriculture, as it 

 seems to me, was his new conception of the office of fertility in farm 

 economy. Up to the time of the publication of the Stockbridge for- 

 mulas, the practice had been to manure the soil in order to restore 

 lost fertility and to supply deficiencies in the soil, as ascertained by 

 a chemical or crop analysis of the soil. Stockbridge saw that this 

 method was not a practical solution of the problem, for neither 

 chemical nor crop analysis of the soil could be relied upon as a true 

 guide to its enrichment. The chemist disclosed too much that was 

 misleading and the crop too little that was conclusive. But, what is 

 more to the point, Stockbridge saw that we had taken hold of the 

 problem at the wrong end. It was not the soil, but the crop, that we 

 should first consider. We should study it and its needs, and supply 

 it, as far as we were able, with the necessary elements of plant nutri- 

 tion by the use of properly balanced manures. In a word, he turned 

 from the inert soil, which could not answer, to the living crop, which 

 could, and put this question to it : 



" What shall I supply you in excess of what you may obtain from 

 the soil or air by your own habits and conditions of growth to make 

 you a perfect and profitable crop ? " 



