Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871 [PAGE 335]

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327 demand for some plan by which this scientific agriculture could be reduced to practice, by which people could be made to feel that we were working in their interests. The Board of Trustees seemed to see the force of the argument of these gentlemen, and the result of the matter was that they placed the whole subject in the hands of a new committee, and gave this committee the injunction to draw up some plan for the working out of their ideas, and it resulted in this : that they considered that a series of experiments should be carried on at the College F a r m ; that a portion of our College Farm should be put aside or the purpose of making these experiments; but in considering the whole matter, and in attempting to draw up a line of procedure, some system by which they should be governed, they found that the difference in soil and the difference in climate must be considered, and that in order to give the widest scope, and that our experiments might produce the greatest benefits, they thought that it was necessary to test these experiments in differents parts of the States—similar experiments under different conditions, as isolated elevation, temperature, and so on. They then reported to the Board this much : that they thought some plan should be devised by which the college could distribute its experiments to different parts of the State. The matter was concurred in by the Board; they saw the force of the argument, but they did not see how it could be accomplished. The college was too poor to buy ; it could not buy these farms and it could not rent them, because it was inconvenient; they could not rent them for any considerable length of time, and nobody would give them to them ; so they did not see what could be done. After a good deal of consultation it was determined to go before our State Legislature and just present the matter to them. We were a little afraid of the Legislature, that they would partake of the same prej udice that had existed against the college through the State. The Chairman—Allow me to state that there are some gentlemen who will be obliged to leave by the trains, who would like to hear of your experiments, and the historical part ought to be omitted for their benefit. Mr. Hamilton—I will go over the matter briefly. The three farms were instituted by the Legislature appropriating one-tenth part of the principal of the college scrip for that purpose, and the farms were located by a committee of the Board, after a great deal of trouble one in Chester county, one in Indiana county, and one at the college in Center county, one hundred acres each. About thirty-five acres of these farms was set apart as experimental farms. The other was