Hall is a large building, about one hundred by sixty feet, containing in the upper story a fine armory and drill hall for the military department. The second story is devoted to the departments of chemistry, physics, and engineering. Upon the first floor is the chapel and the rooms occupied by students of analytical chemistry; and in the basement is a general repair shop, a furnace-room, &c.

The botanic museum contains the president's office and lecture-room, and the Knowlton herbarium, which is an admirably mounted collection of more than 15,000 species of plants from all parts of the world. Here are also a unique collection of fifty sections of the trunks of trees from the Himalaya Mountains, numerous specimens of native woods and seeds, and about one hundred and fifty models of fruits. The Hills fund of $10,000 supplies the means for the continual increase of these collections, so that this department is well established and endowed.

The Durfee plant house is a beautiful structure, with curvilinear roof and conveniences for the propagation and successful cultivation of all kinds of plants. It is filled with specimens of those species which are most interesting from their economic value, their beauty of flower or foliage, or their peculiarities in a scientific point of view. When completed according to the original design it will cover 10,000 feet of sur face.

The model barn is one hundred by fifty feet, with an L seventy-five by twenty-five feet, and will accommodate fifty neat cattle and fifty sheep, and contain more than a hundred tons of hay. The posts are twenty-four feet high, and the lower floor is devoted to stalls for cattle and a root room. The upper floor is eight feet above the lower and is easily reached by a drive-way rising about one foot in ten. Near the entrance is a platform scale, and also a trap door, through which roots are dumped into the root room below. In the center of the upper story is a floor extending across the barn with a well-lighted room on either side of the main floor, eighteen by fourteen, and sixteen feet high. One of these is designed for a horse-power to cut fodder, and the other for grain bins and stairs to the story below. Under the entire barn is a cellar eleven feet in the clear, for manure. The barn stands east and west, and teams drive in at one end of the upper story and out at the other. The lower or cattle story is well lighted and ventilated, and opens on the south into a spacious yard, protected from the west winds by the L which contains the sheep pens. The yard is abundantly sup plied with soft, running water.

The old barns upon the farm have been moved to convenient locations and thoroughly repaired, and will hold about one hundred and fifty tons of hay.

COURSE OF STUDY AND INSTRUCTION.

There are two classes of students which the college is designed to benefit, viz: Those who wish to obtain a thorough literary, scientific, and business education, qualifying them to act well their part, not only as farmers and gardeners, but also as citizens and men; and those whose circumstances or wishes induce them to seek a more limited and practical course of instruction, with particular reference to farming as a profession. For the accommodation of the latter it is proposed to have a special class every winter, which shall be under the immediate charge of the professor of agriculture, and also courses of lectures upon various branches of science, and special departments of agriculture and horti culture, in common with the students of the regular classes.

The full course of study occupies four years, and those who complete it receive the degree of Bachelor of Science. Three recitations, or their equivalent in lectures or literary exercises, are assigned for each day, except Saturday and Sunday. Saturday is devoted to scientific excursions and recreation. On Sunday all are required to attend church or Bible class; but in all biblical instruction the inculcation of denominational views is, as far as practicable, to be avoided.

All students are expected to engage in manual labor six hours per week when required, without compensation, for the purpose of learning the various operations of the farm and garden; and those who wish to perform additional work for wages will be allowed to do so, and receive at the rate of from ten to fifteen cents per hour.

Students wishing to be absent from any assigned duty are expected to ask permission beforehand, whenever that is practicable, and in all cases to present their excuses after an absence to any officer from whose exercises they may have been absent. A careful record is kept of the attendance, attainments, and deportment of every student, and sent to his parent or guardian at the close of each term, and only such as are faithful, successful, and gentlemanly are allowed to continue as members of the college.

Those who pursue a select course attend recitations and lectures with the regular classes; but persons properly qualified, and desiring special instruction in chemistry, civil engineering, agriculture, or horticulture, may make private arrangements with the officers having charge of those departments. Candidates for admission to the freshman class are examined in writing upon the following subjects: English grammar, geography, arithmetic, and history of the United States. Candidates for higher standing are examined as above, and also in the studies gone over by the class to which they may desire admission.

No one can be admitted to the college until he is fifteen years of age, and every student is required to furnish a certificate of good character from his last pastor or teacher, and to give a satisfactory bond for the prompt payment of term bills. Tuition and room rent must be paid in advance at the beginning of each term; and bills for board, fuel, and washing at the end of every term. The regular examination for admission is held at 9 o'clock a. m. on the second Thursday of September; but candidates may be examined and admitted at any other time in the year. The first term of the academic year begins on the second Thursday of September, and continues thirteen weeks. The second term begins on the fourth Thursday of January, and continues thirteen weeks. The third term begins on the first Thursday of May, and continues thirteen weeks. There are no free scholarships, and students from other States have the same privileges as those from Massachusetts. The expenses are as follows: Tuition, $12 per term; room rent, $5 per term; incidental expenses, $1 per term; boarding, $3 50 per week; washing, fifty cents. per dozen; expenses of chemical laboratory to students of practical chemistry, $5 per term; public and private damages, including chemical apparatus, at cost. Total expenses, including fuel and books, about $250 per annum.

Most of the agricultural societies of the State pay the term bills of one or more students selected from the applicants within their respective limits. The arrangement of studies in the regular course is as follows, viz:

Freshman year.-First term: Algebra, human anatomy and physiol ogy, chemical physics. Second term: Geometry, French, chemistry. Third term: Geometry, French, botany, lectures upon hygiene, chemis

try, botany, and agriculture; and exercises in orthography, elocution, and English composition during the year.

Sophomore year.-First term: German, agriculture, commercial arithmetic, and book-keeping. Second term: German, trigonometry, analyti cal chemistry, with laboratory practice. Third term: Mensuration, surveying, analytical chemistry, zoology, drawing. Lectures upon com parative anatomy, diseases of domestic animals, organic chemistry, dairy farming, and market gardening; and exercises in English composition and declamation, during the year.

Junior year.-First term: Physics, French or German, agricultural chemistry, with practice in the laboratory and the field, drawing. Second term: Physics, rhetoric, horticulture, drawing. Third term: Astronomy, systematic botany, French or German. Lectures upon physics, mineralogy, the cultivation of the vine, of fruit and forest trees, and upon useful and injurious insects, and exercises in English composition and debate, during the year.

Senior year.-First term: Intellectual philosophy, history, physical geography. Second term: Moral philosophy, political geography, the civil polity of Massachusetts and the United States. Third term: Geology, engineering, political economy. Lectures upon stock farming, architecture, landscape gardening, rural law, geology, and English literature, and exercises in original declamation and debate, during the year.

Exercises in gymnastics, military tactics, and the various operations of the farm and garden, through the course.

The college was opened for students October 2, 1867, and has been nearly full ever since. The average age of its members is about eighteen years, and the majority are farmers. Nearly all who have entered have been desirous of remaining through the entire course, and all have performed their various duties with cheerful readiness. The manual labor has been so far performed without any manifestations of dissatis faction, and has been regarded as an important part of the education. The faculty consists of a president, who is also professor of botany and horticulture; a professor of agriculture; a professor of military science; a professor of mathematics and physics; a professor of chemistry; a professor of modern languages; and such instructors and lecturers as are required to teach in the best manner the various subjects of the regular

course.

The college is generally conceded to have been thus far remarkably successful, and it is confidently expected that the legislature of the State and the wealthy friends of progressive agriculture will furnish funds suf ficient to place it in the foremost rank of the educational institutions of Massachusetts.

RECENT AGRICULTURAL BOOKS.

THE ELEMENTS OF AGRICULTURE: A Book for Young Farmers. By Geo. E. Waring, jr. 12mo. 254 pages. New York: The Tribune Association.

This book teaches young farmers the first principles of their profession, and shows them in plain language what science has discovered and told in its necessarily technical terms, and what experience has proved to be of practical value. The facts promulgated lie at the groundwork of farming, and are essential to the business education of every farmer. Its teachings are based on the positive facts of chemistry and the most enlightened practice of modern agriculture. The constitution of plants, the formation and character of soils, the character and varieties of manures, the mechanical character of soils, with reference to draining, sub-soil plowing, rolling, mulching, &c., are discussed with comparative freedom from technical terms.

A scientific description of chemical and mechanical manures is followed by suggestions on their relative value, their manufacture, preservation and application; on the means of restoring deficiencies of soils; on absorbents, various organic and mineral manures, atmospheric fertilizers, leaching, &c. It is mentioned as a "singular fact concerning leaching, that water is able to carry no part of the organic constituents of vegetables to any considerable distance below the surface in a fertile soil. They would probably be carried to an unlimited depth in pure sand, as it contains nothing which is capable of arresting them; but in most soils the clay and carbon retain all of the ammonia and nearly all of the matters which go to form the ashes of plants, very near the surface of the soil. If such were not the case, the fertility of the earth must soon be destroyed, as all of those elements which the soil must supply to growing plants would be carried down out of the reach of roots, and leave the world a barren waste, its surface having lost its elements of fertility, while the downward filtration would render the water of wells and springs unfit for use. Now, however, they are all retained near the surface of the soil, and the water issues from springs comparatively pure." On the question of spreading manure on land for any length of time before being plowed under, Mr. Waring says: "Practice has gained a triumph over the old theory. There is no doubt that manure so spread is subject to some waste; but what is not wasted is so much better incorporated with the soil by the water of rains, which distributes its soluble parts evenly among all of its particles, that the effect produced is better than if the raw manure had been immediately plowed under, necessarily somewhat irregularly and in spots. In this latter case there would be no loss of material; but some parts of the soil would receive more than was necessary, while others would be deprived of any material benefit, and the land would be less fertile than if every root were sure to find, in every part of the soil, its due proportion of the food. Ammonia is formed only during decomposition; and especially during cold weather there is very little decomposition going on in manure which is thinly spread upon the surface of the land; hence the loss from this cause is not great.

"In the case of very heavy manuring, especially with undecomposed

manure on clay land, a great benefit arises from the fermentation of the dung in the soil, a chemical action producing a mechanical effect.

"Night soil, or human excrement, is the best manure within reach of the farmer. The food of man is usually much richer than that of any other animal, is of a more varied character, and richer in nitrogen, the phosphates, and other inorganic constituents; consequently his manure is made valuable by containing large quantities of these matters. It has been used for ages in China and Japan, and is undoubtedly the secret of their success in supporting an immense population through almost countless ages, without impoverishing the soil.

"Some have supposed that manuring with night soil would give disagreeable properties to plants; this is not the case; their quality is inva riably improved. The color and odor of the rose are made richer and more delicate by the use of the most offensive night soil as manure.

"It is evident that this is the case from the fact that plants have it for their direct object to make over and put together the refuse organic matter, and the gases and the minerals found in nature, for the use of animals. If there were no natural means of rendering the excrement of animals available to plants, the earth must soon be shorn of its fertility, as the elements of growth, when once consumed, would be essen tially destroyed, and no soil could survive the exhaustion. There is no reason why the manure of man should be rejected by vegetation more than that of any other animal, and indeed it is not; ample experience has proved that there is no better manure in existence. Night soil may be so kept that there will be no loss of its valuable gases, and no offensive odor arise from it, when it can be removed and applied to crops without unpleasantness; and that is, by simply mixing with it a little charcoal dust, prepared muck, dry earth, or any other good absorbent, thus making what is called poudrette."-(See article on earth closets, &c.) In illustrating the benefits of sub-soil plowing, the author remarks: "If plants will grow better on a soil six inches deep than on one of three inches, there is no reason why they should not be benefited in proportion by disturbing the soil to the whole depth to which roots will travel, even to a depth of two feet. The minute rootlets of corn and most other plants will, if allowed by cultivation, occupy the soil to a greater depth than this, having a fiber in nearly every cubic inch of the soil for the whole distance. There are very few cultivated plants whose roots would not travel to a depth of thirty inches or more. Even the onion sends its roots to the depth of eighteen inches when the soil is well cultivated.

"The object of loosening the soil is to admit roots to a sufficient depth to hold the plant in its position; to obtain the nutriment necessary to its growth; to receive moisture from the lower portion of the soil; and, if it be a bulb, tuber, or tap, to assume the form requisite for its largest development. It must be evident, also, that roots penetrating the soil to a depth of two feet, anchor the plant with greater stability than those which are spread more thinly near the surface."

The chapters on under-draining, plowing, mulching, and weeding, are valuable, but in a compact style scarcely admitting abridgment.

How CROPS GROW: A Treatise on the Chemical Composition, Structure, and Life of the Plant, for all students of Agriculture, with numerous Illustrations and Tables of Analyses. By Samuel W. Johnson, A. M., professor of analytical and agricultural chemistry in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College, &c. 12mo. 394 pages. New York: Orange Judd & Co. 1868.

Professor Johnson has delivered an annual course of lectures to the scientific school of Yale College for several years, and this work is the