Repository: UIHistories Project: Course Catalog - 1871-1872 [PAGE 30]

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ILLINOIS INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY.

action and value of the several kinds of food, and the laws of feeding, fattening, and healthful growth. In short, it is the aim of the true Agricultural College to enable the farmer to understand thoroughly and profoundly, all that men can know about soil and seed, plants and animals, and the influences of light, heat and moisturn, on his fields, his crops, and his stock ; so that he may both understand the reason of the processes he. uses, and may intelligently work for the improvement of those processes. Not "book farming," but a knowledge of the real nature of all true farming—of the great natural laws of the farm and of all its phenomena—this is the true aim of agricultural education. And when it is recollected that agriculture involves the principles of a larger number of sciences than any other human employment or profession, it will not be regarded as an unfit end of a sound collegiate training. The instruction unites as far as possible, Theory and Practice—Theory explaining Practice, and Practice illustrating and enforcing Theory.

APPARATUS.

The College has for the illustration of Practical Agriculture, a large stock farm of 410 acres, provided with a large stock barn, fitted up with stables, pens, yards, cooking room, etc.; and fine stock of several breeds of neat cattle, embracing Short Horns, Herefords, Devons. Ayrshires, and Jersey Cattle. It also has several breeds of swine and sheep to illustrate the problems of breeding and feeding. An Experimental Department, aided by a special appropriation, has also been organized. It includes field experiments in the testing of the different varieties and modes of culture of field crops, and in the comparison and treatment of soils, carried on at the University farm, where about sixty acres are devoted to this purpose, and at other points representing the different soils and climates of the State. It includes also experiments in horticulture and agriculture, under the direction of the Professor of Horticulture and of the Farm Superintendent, and of experiments in feeding animals of different ages, and development upon the various kinds of food. In common with similar departments in the several State agricultural colleges of the country, it attempts to create positive knowledge towards the development of an agricultural science. At a meeting held at Chicago, in August, 1871, the representatives of a dozen or more of these institutions agreed to co-operate in this work, and to make experiments in common, as well as others peculiar to their several States. A Veterinary hall and stable is provided, and a Clinic is held in the Fall or Winter Term, to illustrate the lectures on Veterinary Science. Surveying and Drainage are illustrated by practice in the field. Chemistry ia pursued by work in the laboratory. Collections of seeds, soils, plants, implements, skeletons of animals, models and apparatus are provided to illustrate the several branches of Agricultural Science.

SCHOOL OF HORTICULTURE.

The aim of this school is to afford a scientific and practical education specially adapted to the wants of those who cultivate garden and orchard plants. In the fertile soils and favorable climate of our State, with our rapidly increasing population and easy transportation, this department of human industry, always