Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1870 [PAGE 247]

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231 special departments, such as Horticulture, Veterinary Science, etc. I am struck with the hopefulness of the lecturer, and hope also that when our young men go out from this and similar institutions, we may expect from them assistance in building up an agricultural literature. For though there is a great mass of it, there is a deficiency in quality, and especially of text books. DR. MILES—This is an important subject. I am a collector of the old books on agriculture, and am often asked why I call for the old books. I answer because I find the ideas and practices of to-day recommended in many cases in these old books. We should keep ourselves posted on what has already been done. Hoskyns has written a very excellent history of agriculture. Low's Practical Agriculture and his Domestic Animals are good and cheap. Morton's Cyclopaedia of Agriculture is more limited in its range, but later than Loudon's. Loudon's is valuable for its history. The Cyclopaedia d' Agriculture in France, of which twelve volumes are out, is very complete and good. Three more are to appear. The improvement in agricultural journals is quite marked. So is that in books. Previously we had only compilations, that brought book farming into disrepute. Our works on domestic animals were all reprints from Touatt and others. PROF. BLISS—The Germans and French are pretty active now in agricultural publication. Their lands are getting poor, and they feel more need of science. One publication is entirely devoted to the reports of Experiment Stations. These experiments are generally carried on under cover, where the conditions can be controlled. Many of these experiments are of no immediate value; but the Germans claim that they are laying the basis of a scientific agriculture. There is a quarterly, Der Chemiscbe Aekersmann, edited by Stockhardt at Leipsic, and a quarterly at Berlin, in which topics are treated of more scientifically and less ephemerally. There are histories of agriculture in German that are valuable. Some of the English periodicals are of value, as the Journal of the Koyal Agricultural Society. There is a great deal about drainage in them, and I think of more value to us than the lecturer supposes. FLAGGT— I consider it very important to secure for the University Library files as complete as possible of the agricultural papers of the country, and especially of the "West. They contain some very valuable material.