Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Oregon, and Wisconsin. They have sold during the year 51,405 acres, at an average price of $4.41 per acre, and 1,463,505 remain unsold. The largest average price obtained per acre by any State was $8.38, by Michigan, and the smallest, $2.20 by Iowa. In some of the colleges the num ber of students pursuing agricultural or mechan ical studies is much smaller in proportion to the number in attendance than in others. This may be owing to several causes. In some cases the colleges have been recently established, and have not yet been brought into practical working order; in others the students were poorly pre pared when they entered, to consequence of the low standard of education in the surrounding' country, and in others, inducements were greater to enter upon other courses of study which seemed to promise more immediate profit; but these embarrassments are gradually becoming less, and when agriculture and the mechanic arts require higher qualifications for their practice and become more remunerative, they will, no doubt, entirely disappear. Some of the colleges have already attained a high standard of excel lence, considering the time they have been in operation and the fact that they have largely to educate their own educators. A large number
of students graduate at these colleges every year, and enter upon practical farming and the mechanic arts, or to become professors in indus trial institutions of our own or other countries. The annual interest of all the institutions, except two or three, is given at $526,283, which, at six per cent. per annum, represents an investment of $8,771,383. The Commissioner of the Gen eral Land Office, in his annual report for 1869, states the aggregate claim upon the public domain accruing under the agricultural-college-scrip legis lation at 9,510,000 acres, which, at the mini mum price, $1.25 per acre, amounts to $11,987, 500. But. the prudence with which some institutions have husbanded their resources has raised the average much above this minimum. There yet remain 1,463,305 acres to be disposed of, which, at the highest average price obtained, will add about $6,500,000 to the fund. It will doubt less average much higher than this, and will probably raise the aggregate to $19,000,000 or $20,000, 000.