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7 > » STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 29 
interest asserted its rights in this matter. The nation recognizes the 
necessity for a higher standard of education for farmers, and has generously 
provided for it. The parents of those who are to become farmers must 
recognize the same necessity, and husband well the resources which the 
nation places at their disposal, attesting the wisdom of Congress in the 
annual improvement of the farmer and the farm, and the higher elevation 
of the agricultural profession. 
The act of the last session of Congress, donating public lands to the 
several States and Territories which may provide colleges for the benefit 
of agricultural and mechanic arts, provides a quantity equal to 30,000 
acres to each senator and representative in Congress to which the States 
are entitled by the apportionment under the census of 1860. New York, 
having thirty-three senators and representatives, is therefore entitled to 
990,000 acres of land, which, if sold at the established Government price 
of one dollar and a quarter per acre, will create a fund of $1,231,500, which 
the State is bonnd by the act to protect and keep good as a perpetual fund, 
which “ shall be invested in stocks of the United States, or of the State, or 
some other safe stocks, yielding not less than five per centum on the par- 
value of said stocks.” This will produce an annual income of $61,815, to 
be applied “ to the endowment, support and maintenance of at least one 
college, where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific 
and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches 
of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts,” which, if 
faithfully administered, will do much to place the agricultural student on a 
level with those of other professions. This is a high trust confided by the 
nation to the farmers and mechanics of our country, and they must see to 
it, that it is not diverted from its proper channel, nor impaired in its use¬ 
fulness by subdivisions among weak and inefficient institutions. 
It is a proper and legitimate duty of this Society to foster the cause of 
agricultural and mechanical education, and watch with jealous care the 
appropriation of this National College fund, to the end that it is not per¬ 
verted from the lofty purposes for which it was set apart by Congress. 
In drawing my official labors, as the President of your Society, to a 
close, I feel it incumbent upon me to express my sincere thanks to my 
immediate predecessor, the Hon. George Geddes, and to the gentlemen of 
the Executive Committee, for their efficient support and co-operation in 
conducting the affairs of the Society, and carrying it successfully through 
the past year, and especially during my absence from the country. 
I am under like obligation, and embrace the present occasion to tender 
my thanks to the Board of Managers of the Monroe County Agricultural 
Society, the Common Council of the city of Rochester, and many of the 
distinguished citizens of Rochester, for their generous and efficient aid in 
making preparations for and in conducting our last annual fair to a suc¬ 
cessful issue. 
Regretting that it has not been in my power to render more valuable 
services to the Society during the past year, and pledging my future 
co-operation in whatever may tend to advance the interests of the Society 
and the cause it has at heart, I turn with satisfaction to the performance of 
my last official duty, the introduction of my successor, Mr. Edward G. Faile. 
