The Government and Agriculture

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The House of Representatives at Washington have passed a bill donating land to the several States for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts. The bill was introduced by Mr. Morrill, and passed by yeas 104, nays 101. It grants six millions three hundred and forty thousand acres of land, to be apportioned to each State in a proportionate degree with its number of Senators and Representatives—which is equal to twenty thousand acres for each Senator and Representative in Congress—to which the States are now respectively entitled. The proceeds of the sales of these lands are required to be invested in stocks of the United States, or of the States, or some other safe stocks, and the money so invested to constitute a perpetual fund, the interest of which shall be inviolably appropriated by each State to the endowment, support and maintainence of at least one college, where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific or classical studies, to teach such branches of learning as relate to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the Legislatures of the States may prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life.

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