A SUCCESSFUL AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.
One of the earliest and most successful
of the agricultural colleges in the country, is that established at Lansing, Michigan. A letter of Prof. W. J. Beal, lecturer on botany at that college, published in the Union Springs Advertiser, says:

Some people have queer ideas of such
a college. They think it is a new fangled
notion, that the professors are stuck up
men, drawing big salaries, strutting
about in broadcloth and kid gloves,
knowing nothing at all of farming, or
kindred pursuits, except a few theories
they have got from books. There never
was a greater mistake. The professors
are practical men, and go into the fields
and gardens with the students for three
hours every afternoon. They do not
commonly take hold and do the work of
one hand, it is true. This would not be
best for any man who is foreman for a
large number of workmen, but there is
not one of these professors who cannot
do any part of the work better and quicker and easier than any of his students. They frequently take up tools and show
the boys how to use them. The pupils
do not receive very large pay for their
work-never over twelve and a half cents
an hour-but they perform a great variety of labor, all of which comes in handily with the theories and lectures. No one
is fit to superintend any kind of work
unless he can do it himself as it ought to
be done.

They are taught to be prompt, neat,
accurate, and to keep everything in perfect order. You can hardly imagine the
great variety of experiments performed
at the college, and the care taken to have
them all perfectly accurate and reliable.
For example, this year they are raising
forty-one varieties of tomatoes, treating
all alike as far as possible. They are
planted and hoed on the same days, the
date and weight of the first mature fruit
is recorded, also the same with reference
to all the later fruit during the season.
They have originated several varieties
which are new and promising. Experiments are made of various kinds with
potatoes, onions, peas, corn, oats, strawberries,, wheat; feeding pigs, sheep and cattle, in different ways. Various kinds
of manures are tested and experiments
made in breeding cattle and other stock.
Fully sixty per cent of the students after
leaving the college, go into horticulture,
agriculture, or some kindred industrial
pursuit.