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Caption: Book - History of the University (Powell)
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8 History University of Illinois In 1845 a committee on agriculture of the legislature said in reporting on a petition for the incorporation of the Massachusetts academy of agriculture: "We are not informed of more than one professor of agriculture in all the colleges of New England." The one referred to was probably the lecture* ship on agricultural chemistry and mineralogy held by Charles U. Shepard in Amherst college according to catalog 1843-1844 of that institution. Because of the fact that Massachusetts had no state agricultural society, no such consistent and unified effort to obtain an agricultural college is found, as has been noted in New York. In 1845 the legislature had passed " An act to incorporate the Massachusetts academy of agriculture." It was to be an institution of secondary grade authorized to hold real estate to be devoted to the purposes of education. Again in 1848 the legislature passed an act incorporating the Massachusetts agricultural institute, an institution similar to the one proposed in 1845. Public mention of the advisability of establishing an agricultural college in Massachusetts was made in an address before the Norfolk agricultural society by Marshall P. Wilder in 1849. The idea did not have to wait for advocates. The very next year definite action was undertaken. On January 8, 1850, Governor George N. Briggs in his inaugural address expressed his interest in agricultural education and recommended legislative aid for it. The subject was taken up immediately by the senate and referred to the committee on agriculture. Memorials and petitions from various agricultural societies of Massachusetts were received by the committee in behalf of such action. On January 31 a joint committee of the legislature presented a full report on the subject. The report advised the appointment of a board of five commissioners who should consider the expediency of establishing an agricultural college, an agricultural department of the state government and of appropriating lands of the commonwealth for the general purposes of education. The report, which contained five resolutions, was recommended for adoption and on May 3, 1850 was approved by the governor after the most serious consideration w^.
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