which will redound to the credit of the State, and to the credit of this Board, as connected with the college.

But what of the model farm and model farming? We have heard some criticisms about the farming here. One man, a reporter for the "New York Tribune," came here, and he reported that he asked us what we were doing, and we said we were doing nothing; and he thought we acted very wisely in saying so, because if we had said we were doing anything, nobody would have believed it. He said the appearance of things around the college was very much like a brickyard; and he said (what was an entirely new discovery,) that it was very gravelly soil from here to Northampton, over which he travelled! and that the Connecticut River makes a magnificent bend to the college. All I wish to say is, that in these eighteen months we have done something. I grant you, not much has been done that could be called model farming, but I want you to know we have not been unmindful of the farm. We have lived here, and we have done something. This farm was made up of six different estates, was covered with old Virginia fences and hedge-rows, old orchards, and fields that had not been planted for a generation. There was a swamp south of where the planthouse now stands, that had never been ploughed in the world. I want to name one or two things that have been done. In the first place, ten acres of that swamp have been thoroughly underdrained, and are now in admirable condition for a botanic garden. They have produced one good crop of corn, and are now laid down to grass. We have torn down the old houses and moved away the old barns, except one lot, which we hope will be removed next summer. We have put a good cellar under the largest and best barn, and there it stands ready for use whenever we have anything to put into it. We have cleared up miles of old fences and hedge-rows; we have prepared twenty acres of ground for planting orchards, and vineyards and nurseries; have raised 200 tons of hay, and 2,400 bushels of corn in the ear, and these boys have dug up by the roots 75 old apple-trees. So that we have not been unmindful of the farm. That is all I claim. I do not claim that we have done much, but I say we have no reason to be ashamed of the progress made when the means we had to do it with are considered, and the fact that the president and farm superintendent have had as

much to do in teaching and organizing the educational departments as they ought to have had to do, irrespective of this other work. If anybody is disposed to be captious, and find fault because we have not done more, I hope he will endeavor to be charitable, and remember that, if we have not done everything, we have done what we could.

And now I come to the important topic of my discourse, and that is, What are the immediate, absolute wants of this college? That is the important question. "Forgetting the things that are behind, we press forward to the things" that remain to be done.

First, as to the military department. I wish to call your attention one moment to the fact that the United States government, in making its grants to the States for the purpose of establishing agricultural colleges, imposed the obligation to teach military tactics, and the Act incorporating the college also requires that military tactics shall be taught. I want you to consider, further, that the State of Massachusetts has provided all the rifles and equipments necessary for the furnishing of these students with the means for military drill and instruction. Now, we have here some soldiers. You have seen the sophomore class handle their muskets. I am not afraid to put them on any field, and if fighting were necessary, (which I hope it will never be again,) I believe they would prove themselves efficient soldiers.. Now, I believe that we are not only bound to teach military tactics, but we are bound to teach them well, for there is nothing that ought to be taught poorly. Whatever is taught at all should be taught well. I believe it is a wise provision that these young men shall be instructed in military tactics. They can be made expert soldiers, fit at least to serve in the infantry, without the sacrifice of any time or strength that could be profitably employed otherwise, provided we have the necessary accommodations. We must have, next spring, for a drill-hall and armory, a cheap wooden building, costing but a few thousand dollars-one hundred by fifty feet. Consider what it would enable us to do. The State has given us the arms; it does not want them stacked out of doors. We should have room for our guns, equipments and uniforms, and a place where the young men could be drilled when the weather is unsuited to out-of-door work. When the weather is good,

and agricultural and horticultural operations are in order, they can work in the field. But in midwinter, and in stormy weather, how much better to have the drill! They need the exercise in stormy weather, and we want them to have it; but this cannot be unless we have a building for the purpose.

But you ask, "How have you got along so far?" We have had this building. This was erected for a laboratory before it was needed, and we have used it as an armory and drill-room; but, as I said before, to-day it is to be cleared, and from this time forward it is to be devoted to its legitimate purpose-chemistry. Now, then, what are we to do? You can see the need for yourselves, and if any of you think of any better plan, I wish you would talk with me privately about it.

Secondly, what do we need to enable us to go forward in the course of study which has been approved by the gentlemen of this Board and other friends of agriculture? In the first place, we want a room where the students can meet together. It would be a queer college that had to assemble out of doors. I want to see all the students every day: they want to see me, perhaps, sometimes; at any rate, they are willing to. I must have a place where I can meet them. This room is to be devoted to chemistry. It cannot be used as a public room, and if it could, it is not large enough. We are to have more than this room full of students. We must have a room where the students can come together for devotional exercises every morning, and for the general purposes of the college. We must have a hall for exhibitions and for the meetings of the Board of Agriculture. The annual meetings of the Board that are held for lectures and discussions should be held on the college grounds if we had a hall. Then we want a room for these young men who have organized the so-called "Ben Franklin Society." These young men are proposing to educate themselves to be intelligent citizens; and, among other things, they expect to be able to express themselves tolerably well upon paper, or before an audience like this, and they must practise. Practice alone gives power. They are very zealous in this work. They have been very active during the past year, without any special oversight on my part, though I have endeavored to have them feel that I was interested in their success, and they have made great progress. Now, they should have one or more halls, where they

can collect a library, bring together their papers, and feel that they have a home, as a literary society.

Again, we greatly need rooms for the college library and cabinet. The present south dormitory is occupied by the cabinet, library, treasurer's office, reading room, and recitation room. All these things must leave that building, or we must have more dormitories before another class can come in. We want a room for the cabinet. It should be in one room, safe from fire, and it should be well arranged and cared for.

Then, we must have an apparatus room, and a lecture room for the professor of physics and applied mathematics. He must have a place where he can keep his apparatus and give his lectures. In the same building, on the lower floor, we want rooms for lectures upon agriculture and an agricultural museum, where we can collect agricultural implements, models, agricultural products, and whatsoever is of interest to those who are studying agriculture. We want them convenient, so that when we take our lecturers into the agricultural lecture room to lecture upon particular subjects, they can there find all the means of illustration.

Then, the building that has been built this summer as a dormitory has underneath a commodious basement, one-half of which should be fitted up as a bathing-room, and the other as a tool-room, where the students can keep their hoes, axes, rakes, and such other small tools as are designed for daily use. They want them here, ready to their hands. They do not want to go off to the barn, because their work may be in the other direction. They should have their tools right where they keep themselves.

In regard to our educational wants, I desire to add simply this: We need these additional accommodations in order to make room for more students, and to enable us to carry out our course of instruction. Then we want scientific apparatus. We have professors, we have students, we have a laboratory, but we have nothing with which to buy scientific apparatus. We want money to buy chemical, philosophical, engineering and surveying apparatus. We want books of reference, to be kept in the library, with the books which some gentlemen have so kindly and generously given us, and which some other gentle

men are going to give us. We want apparatus, I repeat, and apparatus rooms.

So much for educational matters. These are immediate wants, and they are the more important because we are now in our second year, and before our next annual meeting here we are to have our third year; and the second and third years of any college are the years for scientific study. These are the years when we want to teach chemistry, surveying, natural philosophy. We require these things next year— that is, we must do something this winter. But we absolutely need this apparatus next summer and winter. In order that these young men who have come forward and given the college such a start may be carried creditably and safely through their course of study, we must have this apparatus, and have it before another year.

Finally, the agricultural and horticultural wants of the college are these, which I know you wish to supply: We must have model farm buildings, and the chairman of your committee is here prepared to report his plans for a new barn. The next thing is a supply of soft running water, and enough of it. All these old barns along here had lead pipes brought down from the hill, that furnished an ample supply of running water. Certainly this college, with all these buildings, ought to have as much. We have a plan for a reservoir which will hold thirteen millions of gallons, in yonder hillside, which can be built. for a few thousand dollars, and the water brought down, through a four-inch pipe, to the new barn, and straight along in front of these buildings; and then you can have water for your botanic garden, which is indispensable, water for your stock, water for all ornamental and useful purposes, and for security in case of fire. Certainly, with all these needs, we ought not to be out of water, when there is plenty of it running to waste on the hillside.

Then we want some stock model animals. These young men have been studying dairy farming. Your Secretary has lectured upon the Dairy and Dairy Farming, and has told them of the Jerseys, and Ayrshires, and Shorthorns, and Devons, and the little Brittanies, and so on; and they want to see what they look like, and they ought to see. This college must have some model animals. You all know it. We have plenty of