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under any pretense whatever, to the purchase, erection, preservation, or repair of any building ar buildings.

"3d. Any State which may take and claim the benefit of the provisions of this act, shall provide within five years at least not less than one college as described in the fourth section of this act, or the grant to such State shall cease, and said State shall be bound to pay the United States the amount received of any lands previously sold, and that the title to purchase under the State shall be valid.

“4th. An annual report shall be made, regarding the progress of each college, recording any improvements and experiments made, with their cost and results, and such other matters including State industrial and economical statistics as may be supposed useful; one copy of which shall be transmitted by mail, free, by each, to all other colleges which may be endowed under the provisions of this act, and also one copy to the Secretary of the Interior.

"5th. When lands shall be selected from those which have been raised to double the minimum price, in consequence of railroad grants, they shall be computed to the States at the maximum price, and the number of acres proportionally diminished.

"6th. No State while in condition of rebellion or insurrection against the Government of the United States, shall be entitled to the benefits of this act.

7th. No State, shall he entitled to the bene

act, unless it shall express its acceptance thereof by its legislature within two years from the date of its approval by the President.

"SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That Iand scrip issued under the provisions of this act shall not be subject to location until after the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three.

"SEC. 7. And be further enacted, That the land officers shall receive the same fees for locating land scrip issued under the provisions of this act as are now allowed for the location of military bounty land-warrants under existing laws: Provided their maximum compensation shall not be thereby increased.

"SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That the Governors of the several States to which scrip all be issued under the provisions of this act, shall be required to report annually to Congress all sales made of such scrip until the whole shall be disposed of, the amount received for the same, and what appropriation has been made of the proceeds."

During the session of the Ohio legislature in 1864, a bill (H. B. No. 4) was passed accepting this grant of 630,000 acres for the State of Ohio, and at a later period in the year the Governor received land scrip for that amoună. Several bills for the organization of several agricultural colleges were presented to the legislature, as well as memorials from the trustees of the college at College Hill, near Cincinnati; Ohio University, at Athens; Miami University, at Oxford, and Mt. Union College, at Mt. Union, Stark county, Ohio. A committee consisting of the Senate and House committees on "Agriculture," and "Colleges and Universities," visited the college near Cincinnati, and subsequently reported to the legislature that "We would therefore recommend that the trustees and stockholders of Farmers' College be requested to leave open their proposal now before this General Assembly, in order that future action may be had upon this subject, with due regard to the highest and best interests of the whole State." Som members of the legislature were of opinion that an agricultuaal department

attached to existing colleges in the State, would prove to be all that agriculture or its interests would require; others were for establishing three or more exclusively agricultural and mechanical colleges, whilst many were of opinion that agriculture proper could receive no permanent benefit from science or special agricultural education.

Those who are of opinion that science properly applied, or special education for that purpose, can be of no benefit to agriculture can not certainly be familiar with the history of agriculture during the past century in Europe. A few facts and figures in relation to this point may not be out of place here. In Prussia the area cultivated at present is the same that it was a hundred years ago. Annexed is a tabular statement of the product per square (Prussian) mile, together with the product per capita of the population in 1755, 1800, and 1854:

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Bushels. Per capita. Bushels. Per capita Bushels. Per capita.

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From this statement it will be seen that in 1755 the population was 2,641 per square (Prussian) mile-equal to about sixteen of our square miles-and that the entire product per square mile of all the crops used as food for the inhabitants, amounted to ten and one-fifth bushels for every individual. About 1780 considerable attention was directed to improvement in agriculture in that country, and by the year 1800 the aggregate of cereal crops was almost doubled, or would have given every individual, if the population of 1755 had not increased, seventeen and three-fourth bushels, but as the population did increase somewhat, the average per capita was a little over fifteen and three-fourth bushels. About 1800 the doctrines of Thaer and Von Fellenberg were finding a practical response in the improvement of almost all departments of agriculture. Agricultural schools, colleges, universities, and experimental farms sprang up in many places in Prussia. The result of this agricultural education is that in 1854, when the population amounted to 7,310 per square mile, the aggregate

production amounted to 244,635 bushels, or about nine times the amount produced on the same area one hundred yeas previous, and gave an average of thirty-three and one-half bushels to every individual of a population which had almost tripled during the century.

The population per square mile of 1854 could not have been subsisted on the product of a square mile in 1755, whilst the population of 1755 would have had more than nine times the amount in 1854 than they had in 1755. No one will argue that the soil of its own accord really became more productive by reaping a hundred crops from it. The increased productiveness then must be attributed to an improved system of culture, and this improved system could have had no other origin than intelligence, or, in other words, APPLIED SCIENCE. The figures just quoted are a much stronger argument in favor of agricultural education than the most rhetorical essay could possibly make.

If special education is of advantage anywhere, it must be of greater advantage in agriculture to society in general than in any other industrial pursuit-indeed of greater advantage than in any other pursuit whatever, because it is the application of knowledge (which is nothing more than a more common name for science) to the production of the raw material. When and where the raw material can be produced in great abundance and cheaply, all else consequent upon it follows more rapidly, and with greater advantage to society at large. If breadstuffs, the "staff of life, and material for clothing, are abundant and cheap, then more time may be devoted to social intercourse, study, and the development and culture of the better and more refined qualities of our natures.

But the practical man objects to teaching agriculture in schools and colleges, and insists that "farming" cannot be either learned or taught properly, except upon the farm itself. He objects to teaching chemistry, botany and geology, with reference to employing these sciences in agriculture. To be consistent, he should object to teaching arithmetic, grammar and geography in common schools. In many arithmetics may be found examples for exercise somewhat as follows: "The head of a fish is 9 inches long, and the tail is as long as half the body, and the body is as long as the head and tail together; what is the entire length of the fish?" The practical man ought to say that, as well as the head could be measured, the entire fish might be measured, and therefore there is no use in making "a sum" about it in arithmetic, and furthermore, such sums do not occur in practical life at all events; and therefore the time and money expended in studying arithmetic is just so much thrown away-is, in fact, worse than thrown away, for the student's mind becomes filled with "vagaries" of this kind, and forgets the more practical and substantial duties of life. Again,

in some arithemetics, under the head of " Miscellaneous Examples," intended as a test of the student's proficiency in the analysis of numbers, may be found an example somewhat as follows:

A, B and C met at an inn,

Where they grew very merry

With drinking brandy, wine and gin,
Some glasses, too, of sherry.
At length the reck'ning they must pay
To make all matters even;
A paid two-ninths, as poets say,
While B and C paid seven;

As oft as O paid thirty cents,

B paid the sum of fifty.

Now tell the cents each fellow spent,

If C spent nine times twenty.

The very "practical" man would, at once and in disgust, withdraw his sons from school, if he learned that they were spending their time in computing the "liquor bills" of three worthless scamps at one of their midnight orgies. All the examples in arithmetic, without any reference to the language in which they are clothed, or the purpose to which they are applied in the book, serve simply to familiarize the student with the power and relation of numbers. There are thousands of events in every-day practical life, in which the principle or relation of numbers, assumed in the "fish" example, or in the example of " A, B and C," are involved, and on the proper analysis or solution of which much happiness or misery may depend. The difficulty with the purely practical man—as this term is generally understood—is that he does not discover any principle involved in any of these examples, but accepts them in their literal sense, and will not accept them in any other; and, if reminded that they may be regarded as illustrating a principle, he will insist that the example should express in actual and positive language the principle involved. It is for this very reason that he fails to find anything in chemistry, botany, geology or minerology, to assist him in his avocation. He finds, for example, in chemistry, that oxygen and nitrogen form the atmosphere; that oxygen and hydrogen form water, and that hydrogen and nitrogen form ammonia, which is excellent plant-food. He finds that he cannot mix water and air, and thus obtain the desired plant-food, and abandons chemistry in disgust. He does not stop to inquire whether ammonia might not be obtained, 'ready made," in the urine of his cattle and horses in the stable, and that liquid manure is the readiest and most practical means at his command to supply plants with food. And because he does not find barn-yard manure discussed in elementary works on chemistry, thinks that manure has no chemical effect on his soil or crops.

The agriculturist requires a special education just as much if not more than any of those who engage in the "learned professions" of law, medicine or Divinity. To be eminently successful, the agriculturist requires just as precise a knowledge of chemistry, botany, physiology and geology, as the physician requires a knowledge of anatomy, physiology, therapentics and materia medica; or, as the merchant requires a knowledge of arithmetic, grammar, geography and book keeping. In an agricultural college he will learn the elements and principles of these sciences, and on an experimental farm, he will learn the pratical application of them. The college, therefore, will be a failure if there are not lands sufficient attached to it upon which every important principle taught can be put in practice upon the soil, and a competent teacher to direct the application. It is, after all, upon the experimental farm that we must rely for the acquisition of positive knowledge in farming. So far as this topic of experiments in agriculture is concerned, we can do no better than to present entire the able address of Prof. Anderson, at Stirling, in Scotland, as we find it printed in the London Farmer's Magazine:

When the agriculture of the early part of the century is compared with that of the present day, it is very evident that its marvellous progress must be attributed to a va riety of circumstances. The increase of the population, and of the national wealth, and the growing intelligence of the people, have all tended to promote it; but their influence may be described as to a certain extent unavoidable, and they are in no degree special to agriculture, but have acted with equal force on every department of the arts and manufactures. While due weight must be given to these and other similar causes, we natur ally look with greater interest to those which have exerted a more special effect on agriculture itself, and have caused it to advance with perhaps greater rapidity than any other art. This rapid progress is largely due to its having called in extraneous aid. It has applied to the mechanician to devise new implements and machines better fitted to fulfil the objects than those previously in use; to the chemist, the physiologist, and the meteorologist, to explain the natural laws on which it depends-and these branches of knowledge have brought to bear upon it the results of much laborious work-a great part of which was accumulated at a time when it was not even imagined that it could become useful to agriculture, and when the teachings of science were often considered visionary and unpractical. The farmer has not been slow to take advantage of the assistance which these sciences afford him, but has recognized the fact that his art is a complex one, founded on many branches of human knowledge, with which he may usefully co-operate in advancing it; and in this recognition of the necessity for aid and assistance, as well as for active exertion in determining their principles, lies the great guarantee for the progress of all the arts. In the early stage of their existence, those who practice them not only remain within the circle of their own knowledge, but they are content to be to a great extent passive agents, adopting, it is true, such improvements as come in their way, but rarely going out of the beaten track to seek for them, and hence that slow progress which constrasts so strikingly with the rapid development which is Bure to occur when men's minds are directed to what is new.

In no art, perhaps, is the contrast between these two ges of its existence more

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