thing has already been done to good purpose in experimenting and the infusing of good principles, but as yet the great lack is that of trustworthy records of facts. But fixed laws of nature no more certainly control the operations of gravitation, the motion of fluids and the mechanical principles than they do the bewildering perplexity of animal and vegetable growth. The dignity of the mind of man calls for unwearied attempts to analyze the phenomena and determine their laws. The fact also that the comprehension of every law of nature adds practical power to man, and rewards his diligence by increased comforts, calls for continued research. If the College can, through its graduates, add to the number of trustworthy observers and recorders of agricultural facts, it cannot fail to become a great benefactor to the world. For a more complete exemplification of the plan pursued, see the Chemist's Report, Appendix D.

The College is gradually adding to its means of instruction. It is highly desirable that its students shall learn the use of all labor saving machines, and they are introduced as the means of the Institution, and the state of ground render advisable. The vegetable garden during the past season was, according to the universal testimony of all visitors, unsurpassed in the State in the variety and excellence of its products. It is needless, here, more than to refer to the good condition of the botanical garden, to the small fruits, the apple orchard, the re-mapping of the grounds and general beauty of the place.

During the summer, Dr. Miles, under the direction of the Board, visited the eastern herds of Short-Horns and Devons, and made a purchase of a bull and two heifers of each breed. They are all animals of great beauty, and of the choicest blood. Hon. J. B. Crippen, of Coldwater, donated a pure blood ShortHorn heifer to the College before any purchase had been made. It is hoped that these animals may serve-not only as means of instruction-their first use-but to improve the stock of the State. The pedigrees are given in the appendix.

Besides the valuable present of the Short-Horn just mentioned, the College has been the recipient of many gifts during the year. A Chester White pig, the donation of Seth A. Bushnell, of Hartford, Trumbull Co., Ohio, now makes the College the possessor of three pure breeds of swine: the Suffolk, Essex, and Chester White.

Among the donations made to the College it cannot be invid ious to make very particular mention of the Cooley Herbarium, presented by Mrs. Clarissa Babbitt, of Washington, Macomb county, the widow of the collector. It is estimated by Mr. Prentiss to contain more than twenty thousand specimens, and to have but few equals in the country. It is especially rich in our indigenous flora, and contains a large collection of tropical, Californian and Australia species. The collection of grasses is also unusually large. Dennis Cooley, M. D., the collector of this Herbarium, devoted to it a large portion of his time for upwards of twenty years. Many of the plants were obtained by exchanges with Dr. Torry, W. S. Sullivant, Dr. Dewey, John Carey, and many other celebrated Botanists by whom they were classified and labeled.

This Herbarium is to be known as the Cooley Herbarium under the following resolutions of the Board, passed May 29th, 1863:

Resolved, That we accept for the State Agricultural College, the valuable Herbarium, presented by Mrs. Clarissa Babbit, of Washington, Macomb county, and tender her our thanks for the same.

Resolved, That the collection be preserved sufficiently separate from other specimens in Botany, to be identified as one collection, and that it receive from its author, the late Dennis Cooley, M. D., the name of the Cooley Collection.

Resolved, That the President of the College be requested to transmit these resolutions to Mrs. Babbit, with an expression of our high appreciation of the value of the services rendered by her late husband, Dr. Cooley, to the science of Botany, and of his enthusiasm, ability and life long efforts to promote the knowledge of it.

All the specimens of plants are in an admirable state of preservation, and all are labeled. The earlier part of the collection

is classified according to the Linnean system, and much of the later is not classified. The work of arranging the plants according to the only classification in use-the natural-will be begun this winter, and carried to the limited extent that the time and an outlay of twenty-five dollars will permit.

Dennis Cooley was born in South Deerfield, Mass., Feb. 18, 1789. His father was a well-to-do farmer, who gave all his children a Massachusetts school and academic education. He received his medical education at the Pittsfield Medical College. It is reported of him that his leisure hours, during his whole course of study, were spent in pastures, woods and swamps in pursuit of botanical specimens. His enthusiasm in the study commenced in early years and continued undiminished till his death. After practicing about three years in his native village he removed to Monticello, in Georgia. This was about the year 1822. His first practice was chiefly amongst the slaves, but he soon found his way to a successful practice in the best families of the planters. He found the climate injurious to him, and returned to the North after a three years residence South, which he had turned to a good account in his rapidly growing Herbarium.

Early in the summer of 1827, Dr. Cooley found his way to Washington, Macomb Co., Michigan, where was a thriving Yankee settlement, and there he resided until his death, the 8th September, 1860. He was twice married; in 1830 to Miss Elisabeth Anderson, of his native village. This lady died in 1834, and her two children also about the same time. In 1836, Dr. Cooley married Miss Clarissa A. Andrews, the donor to the Agricultural College of the Herbarium.

Dr. Cooley was for many years Postmaster of Washington, and was widely known and respected for his skill, abilities and uprightness of character. The result of his enthusiastic love of Botanical science is the Herbarium, which will continue for many years a testimony to his zeal and accuracy; and a means of imparting to others the knowlenge and admiration of nature which constituted so great a portion of his own happiness. His widow, now the wife of S. A. Babbitt, M. D., of Washing

ton, Macomb county, resolved to make a donation of this collection to some Institution of the State, when she could ascertain where it would be most practically useful, fitly judging that in this way she could render imperishable honor to her departed husband, and make his life's work perpetually serviceable to the world. In the Agricultural College the science of botany is pursued far beyond the mere elements, and the member of the Faculty entrusted with the instruction in it, finds the collection of great service.

The general relation of the Board and of the College to the agriculture of the State cannot be such as we would have it until the appointment of a Secretary, who shall perform the duties specified in the law. There should be the united influence of all interested in agriculture to make the Institution one that will exactly meet the wants of the people of the State. The State has, by common consent, the honor of establishing the first institution of the kind in the land. It is patterned after no older model, but has been itself the main guide to the efforts of other States. It has never been suspended since its first organization, as has been erroneously represented, but has gone on educating and graduating students, most of whom would otherwise have passed through life without the education there received. Its course of study has become more and more agricultural, until it has now developed into the plan already exhibited. Let Michigan preserve the honor she has acquired, and still lead the way.

The Board and the College should maintain most intimate relations to the State Agricultural Society. They work for a common end. The efforts of that Society were the main influences which called the College into being; and the free donation of the Library of the Society was the valuable beginning of the College Library. We are happy to state that this cordial spirit still subsists. It should extend beyond corporate bodies to communities and individuals.

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE.

The State Agricultural College was established in conformity to a provision of the constitution of the State. That Instrument, adopted August, 1850, provided that "the Legislature shall encourage the promotion of intellectual, scientific and agricul tural improvement; and shall, as soon as practicable, provide for the establishment of an Agricultural School. The Legisla ture may appropriate the twenty-two sections of salt spring lands now unappropriated, or the money arising from the sale of the same where such lands have been already sold, and any land which may hereafter be granted or appropriated for such purpose, for the support and maintenance of such school, and may make the same a branch of the University, for intruction in agriculture and the sciences connected therewith, and place the same under the supervision of the Regents of the University."

The use of the term "may," as relating to the University in the foregoing citation from the constitution, was the result of a compromise on the part of the delegates to the convention that prepared the instrument for submission to the people. In accordance with the suggestion of the constitution, the Executive Committee of the State Agricultural Society presented to the Legislature in 1850 a memorial. It was written by Bela Hubbard, and asked for an Agricultural Department of the University. But it insisted upon a system of manual labor as of the first importance, and upon a farm of considerable extent, requirements which led the leaders of the enterprise afterwards to the opinion that the Institution would better be entirely disconnected from the University. The same memorial after mentioning some of the studies which would properly be pursued at such a college adds: "Nor should the claims of literature and the fine arts be wholly neglected,"--recommending in fine those branches of education which tend to render agriculture not only a useful, but a learned and liberal profession, and its cultivators not the "bone and sinew" merely, but the orna