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Michigan State Agricultural College BY PRESIDENT ABBOT
A library of 1, 200 books has grown to 8, 000. The stock has increased from a valuation of $1, 400 to a valuation of $18, 000, and the number of students -from 66 to 185. The property at the college is valued at $340, 000.
Through frequent re-appointments, sixteen appointed members have filled out the terms of twenty-six. The utmost harmony has always prevailed in the board, and one of the members named in the law, the Hon. FT. G. Wells, of Kalamazoo, remained on the board continuously, usually as its president, from 1861 to the spring of 1883.
The graduates of the college number (1882) 272, and are scattered into twenty-four States and territories, although three-fourths of them remain in Michigan. One-half the graduates are farmers, or engaged in business directly related to farming, and a much larger proportion are in occupations related to industrial arts.
The chair of practical agriculture was established in 1865. The last chair established is that of veterinary; the last before that was of horticulture as distinct from botany, and the addition to the duties of the botanist of instruction in forestry.
In one sense, the college has gone beyond its enclosures, for its six annual winter farmers' institutes bring the college men and farmers together in the common discussion of topics, and the future opens a prospect of honorable usefulness. It is, and may it ever remain, the Farmers' College.
Michigan State
Page 44
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