STUDENT LIFE AT AN AGRICULTURAL 
COLLEGE. 
THE SHORT COURSE IN AGRICULTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY 
OF WISCONSIN. 
The University of Wisconsin has been making vigor¬ 
ous efforts during the past eight years, through its 
farm institutes and its short course in agriculture, to 
bring its agricultural instruction to a level that shall 
meet the needs of the farming community. The insti¬ 
tute work has brought the University in touch with 
the farmers as nothing else could have done, and 
strenuous efforts have been made to make the instruc¬ 
tion given in the short course, without lowering in the 
least its scientific value, so practical in its applications 
addition to the regular lectures, and was intended to 
furnish practical illustrations and applications of the 
truths presented in the lectures. 
Fig. 32 represents the students in the act of judging 
cows with the score card in order that they might 
become expert in judging live stock. On the score 
card the points of merit and demerit are systematically 
arranged, and a valuation is given to each. An 
animal is brought out, as shown in the illustration, 
and the students, with score card in hand, go over it 
carefully after which the professor in charge goes 
over the animal carefully in the presence of the 
students, pointing out all weaknesses and merits and 
placing a valuation based on that given by the score 
card on each part. In this way the student is trained 
deep setting and the use of hand separators, as well 
as in the different methods of ripening cream and of 
churning and packing butter. All through these 
processes they are required to make analyses of the 
skim-milk and buttermilk and to determine and locate 
the losses or wastes. 
Fig. 34 shows the students at work in the physical 
laboratory. The two at the right in the foreground, 
and also the two at the left, are using two types of 
drainage levels, and are running lines of level on two 
fields modeled in relief. After becoming familiar with 
the instruments, they are required to run similar lines 
out-of-doors. The two in the background in the ex¬ 
treme right are working with a model evener which 
has holes bored for the whiffletree in the same straight 
Students Judging a Short-horn Cow with the Score Card. Fig. 32. 
Students at the Separators. Hiram Smith’s Hall. Fig. 33. 
as to meet the approval of every farmer. In order to 
convey a better impression of the work that is being 
done in this course than is possible in a mere verbal 
description, a series of photographs was taken in 
March, 1892, of the students at work in the various 
laboratories and out of-doors. The accompanying 
illustrations have been reproduced from these, and 
represent the different kinds of work that were daily 
performed by the students during the term. When 
the number of students was too large to permit all to 
engage at one kind of work at the same time, they 
were divided into sections of such a size that all could 
be accommodated in the laboratories without undue 
crowding, and could be well attended by the instruc¬ 
tors. The sections were then transferred at intervals 
from one kind of work to another, so that all of the 
students had the opportunity to practice each kind of 
work. It is to be understood that all the work illus¬ 
trated in the accompanying illustrations was given in 
into a system of judging, and becomes acquainted with 
the relative values of the parts. After he has mastered 
the system, the use of the score card is discontinued, 
but the training goes on in comparative judging. A 
number of animals are placed together, and the 
students award them places in the order of merit, 
each submitting his decisions with his reasons on 
paper to the professor. Afterward the latter awards 
the animals their places, giving his reasons, which are 
freely discussed as the work proceeds. 
Fig. 33 is an illustration of a laboratory in Hiram 
Smith Hall, the dairy building of the University, and 
shows the students attending the cream separators. 
The students of the short course are given practical 
work in testing milk by the Babcock tester, and are 
required to study the variations in the composition of 
milk from different cows and different breeds and to 
detect adulterations in it. They also have practice in 
the different methods of creaming milk, including 
line with the center hole, and also at different dis¬ 
tances from this line, measuring by means of two bal¬ 
ances how much advantage the horse behind or the 
one ahead has over his mate when the whiffietrees 
are set behind or in front of the center hole. With 
this apparatus they also measure just how much ad¬ 
vantage one horse is given by setting one whiffletree 
in toward the center of the evener. 
The two boys standing by the miniature horse are 
working with a model whereby they measure the way 
the direction of the line of draft affects the ability of 
the horse to draw, and also how the horse’s weight 
and the relative width and length of his bones affect 
his power to draw a load. Many older farmers would 
be surprised and instructed by the revelations brought 
out by this simple apparatus. The two boys standing 
at the apparatus at the left and in the rear of 
the horse model are measuring the influence of 
length and bore of drain tiles upon the amount of 
