204 MICHIGAN STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 



gress has endowed educational and research institutions in the 

 states and territories. The federal government has co-operated 

 with the states, and operated where the work was interstate. 

 The movement to educate the producer has reached the problem 

 of primary and secondary education, so that the young farmer 

 may be turned toward the study of the elements of the sciences 

 that are to have his future attention. These combined efforts 

 v^dll result in making household words of what is now taught in 

 college. Discussions of climates, soils, movements of moisture, 

 plants and their improvement, animals and their antecedents, 

 trees and their value, sanitation and its application, will all be- 

 come famiHar to the educated farmer's family. 



NEED OF AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES 



Suppose each of the gentlemen invited here to rejoice with 

 the Michigan Agricultural College in its day of triumph was 

 asked to tell you why we need agricultural colleges, basing his 

 reasons on his observations while on the way here. I would say : 

 The water level is too near the surface in a large percentage of 

 our best soils ; tile is not being laid deep enough — most plants 

 send their roots down four or five feet seeking nutrition — the 

 rootlets stop when they reach stagnant water, and only that 

 depth of soil is at work for the farmer that lies above the water 

 level. I see drains being laid eighteen to thirty inches deep 

 that should go down to forty-eight inches at least, for reasons 

 that every student in the graduating class can give, but which 

 are evidently not known to farmers generally. As the science 

 of soils becomes better understood, much of the draining of 

 today and of the past will be done over again. 



PASTURES 



I have observed on my way here that decided improvement 

 can be made in the pasture, which makes our most valuable 

 crop and is our best recuperating agent. A majority of farmers 

 have only one grass growing, suitable to the soil and climate. 



