tary department, where, in teaching the sciences on which these arts depend, the principles and various applications pertaining to other arts will naturally have place. NUMBER OF STUDENTS. The number of students has not been large, as the catalogue will show. They have enjoyed excellent health, have been unusually regular in attendance, and have manifested unusual interest in the more purely professional objects of the School. The number might have been largely increased at the middle of the term, had we been willing to create new classes of an academic nature. But the Faculty could not bring themselves to believe that the difference between sixty and one hundred students, was so important as the work of developing the professional character of the College, in accordance with the plans of operations, laid down in the Report of the Board for the year 1863, and of the document to be found on the 45th page appended to the same Report. The war, and the consequent scarcity of labor, would naturally affect a College of this kind, more than it would most other Educational Intitutions. Medical Schools, on account of the great demands of the army, would find this to be their harvest time. Young men, aspiring to the professions of law and divinity, would, unless actually in the service of the Country, be found, as heretofore, in the professional school, or in the College, because that is the only way to the positions they seek. Young men of the cities and larger villages, who have means and leisure, will be found in the usual proportions in the Academies and Colleges, pursuing a course of general education, preparatory to the choice of vocations for life. But the farmer's son has no leisure, however ample his means; neither is an education indispensable to the usual measure of success in his business. The desire to possess an education peculiarly adapted to the farmer's life, is to be created; and to do that work, it is necessary that the College should possess superior means of illustration, in matters pertaining to the management 116 REPORT OF SECRETARY OF STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. of stock, and crops, and orchards, and the like; and that the Faculty should never be unmindful of the specific aims of the Institution, but should lead students by their own enthusiasm, and a familiarty with out-of-door affairs, to a like enthusiasm, and to the reference of all farming operations to the general principles of science. T. C. ABBOT, President. REPORT OF EXPERIMENTS IN TOP-DRESSINGS APPLIED TO GRASS-LANDS AT THE STATE AGRICULTTRAL COLLEGE FARM, 1864. To the Faculty of the State Agricultural College: The committee appointed to conduct certain experiments in the application of various top-dressings to grass-lands, would present the following report: A piece of ground, 24 rods by 24, in the College Park, was selected for these experiments. This field was sown with oats, last year, without manure, and seeded with timothy and clover, the latter predominating in the growth of the present year. The piece of ground selected appeared to be of even fertility, and the growth of grass and clover prior to the application of any top-dressing was very uniform. The ground was divided into eight equal parts. No. 1 had no top-dressing, serving as a basis of comparison, showing the natural productiveness of the soil. No. 2 received a dressing of plaster at the rate of two bushels per acre. No. 3, five bushels of wood ashes per acre. No. 4, twenty loads of pulverized muck per acre. No. 5, twenty loads of pulverized muck and three bushels of common salt per acre. No. 6, three bushels of common salt per acre. These dressings were applied from the 5th to the 10th of May. The grass was cut June 20th and 21st by → “Buckeye Junior" machine, cured in small cocks, and drawn into the barn in good condition, June 25th. Each load being carefully weighed on Fairbanks' Hay-Scale. Yield per acre. Yield per acre. The yield per acre of each piece, the kind of top-dressing em ployed, and the gain per acre, are given in the following table: The second crop of clover, &c., was cut by the same machine August 9th and 10th, was put up in small cocks August 10th and 11th. The cocks were turned August 12th, and drawn into the barn August 15th, each load being carefully weighed, as before. The results are given in a tabular form, as in the first crop: TOP-DRESSING APPLIED. TOP-DRESSING APPLIED. These tabular results are given in a separate form instead of being combined in one result, from the conviction that they will give a more satisfactory impression in regard to the experiment. In the experiments of 1863, in top-dressing grass-lands with muck and salt, muck alone gave a gain of 24 per cent., muck and salt gave a gain of 22 per cent., and salt alone 17 per cent. These experiments have been undertaken for the purpose of calling the attention of farmers to the great value of the beds of muck which lie too often neglected and useless-a prolific source of discomfort and disease, instead of what they should be, wealth and abundance. The experiments were purposely very simple in their character, in hopes that others would repeat them and give to the public the results. Agricultural successes which are the result of simple, lavish expenditure, without reference to agricultural returns, are but empty triumphs; no success in any method of culture is thoroughly sound and praiseworthy, except it be imitable, to the extent of his means, by the smallest farmer." All of which is respectfully submitted. STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, R. C. KEDZIE, Chairman of Committee. |