ABSTESS OF TEE BOARD OF TRUSTEES



wishes to know the truth about the finances of the University may do so.

     In conclusion, without seeking to institute invidious Comparisons between

the colleges, (there being no reason so to do) I call your attention to the rapid

growth of the Agricultural College during the last three years; that you may have

the precise figures before you I submit a copy of the roster roll for the last

nine years:

          1904-5, 1905-6, 1906-7, 1907-8, 1908-9, 1909-10, 1910-11, 1911-12, 1912-13.
No. of
students     19     27      32      40      48      66       101      198      286.

     My reason for so extended a notice of this particular College is because of

its peculiar importance to the State and the urgent necessity for its activities to

be extended until its great work is brought home to every fanmer in the Commonwealth.

You have before you Dr. KastleIs most excellent report, let me commend it to your most

careful attention; it shows the splendid work -which has been done for the farming in-

terest and the still more splendid and comprehensive work which it will do for it in

the immediate future. It gis redeeming every pledge made to the last Legislaturg and

under its influence Agriculture will take on a new phase in Kentucky.

     The farmer of Kentucky has too long lagged in the rear on the road of progress;

he must march up into the front rank and catch step with the most advanced of those

who are pressing on to prosperity, Above all things if he wants his boy to stay on

the farm he must give him a scientific agricultural education, He should not be forced

to farm with his muscles alone; teach him to farm with his brains as well; he should

not be a mere drudge - a stupid dolt; teach him how to harness all of the mighty

forces of Nature and to make them work for him a thousandfold more than he works for

himself, There is no reason that the farm should be a place which ambitious youth

shuns.
                                                                          (loneliness)
     I am satisfied that the great objection of youth to farm life is its lonliness.

The young man craves excitement of the city. The average farm house is desolate and

comfortless. There is nothing of the intellectual about it. The panacea for this is

education - the most desolate existence in all the world is isolated ignorance. The



T1lne 4, 1913