UIHistories Project: A History of the University of Illinois by Kalev Leetaru
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Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871 [PAGE 140]

Caption: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871
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132 or other. Our leading agriculturists should be invited to assist at these trials, and give their aid and counsel. The University would thus became more a center of attraction to the farmers and mechanics of the State, and its name and objects become better known. I I I . Experiments in the effects of different degrees of heat, light, electricity and moisture on vegetation, should be carefully made, probably under cover, so as to better control the conditions. I V . Chemical experiments, bearing upon the industrial pursuits, are of course still desirable and, as soon as the chemical-teaching force is sufficient to admit of so doing, ought to be zealously prosecuted. We need analyses of soils, coals, manures, plants, and annual products. V. Experiments in practical agriculture, especially the growing of field crops and the breeding and feeding of animals. For this purpose, and the carrying on of annual courses of lectures, we have an appropriation of $3,000 per annum for two yeais, which should be applied to the best advantage for 1871 and 1872. On the Experimental farm there remains about 70 acres to be cared for this year, and which may be used next year for experimental culture. A small portion of this has already been staked into one-twentieth-of-an-acre plots, and a part has already been sown with grains and grass seed. The remainder of the staked ground, it has been suggested, might be planted to corn with a view of determining the variability between different plots in their productiveness. There still remains a large tract of land on which it would cost too much to endeavor to institute any detailed experiments, but on which, planted mostly to corn, a variety of experiments in varieties of grain, different kinds of seed, different depths and distances of planting, and the like, might be roughly tried. Several crops of other kinds ought to be tried in small amount—such as field peas and beans, rutabagas, carrots, parsnips, sugar beets, flax, hemp, broom corn, hops, mustard, etc. V I . The collection of statistics, and their exposition by maps, tables, etc., is desirable. In this connection I would call attention to the maps of Mr. Fred. P . "Wines, Secretary Board of Public Charities, exhibiting the corn and wheat crop of 1870, in this State, the density of population, etc., as affording some valuable hints. In our last annual report I called the attention of the Governor and of the General Assembly to some of the above points, and, as we now have a partial appropriation, I hope that we may be placed in such condition as to go on and do more than we have yet doue in observation, experimentation and statistics. Eespectfully submitted, W . C. F L i G G .