s been used since 1874 as a breeding
ranch, a tobacco experimental farm and a model dairy. No country
has needed such an institution more than India, where 80 per
cent of the population are engaged in agricultural pursuits,
and most of them with primitive implements and methods. But the
conservatism and the illiteracy, the prejudices and the ignorance
of the natives make it exceedingly difficult to introduce
innovations, and it is the conviction of those best qualified
to speak that the only way of improving the condition of the
farmer classes is to begin at the top and work down by the force
of example. During a recent visit to India this became apparent
to Mr. Phipps, who is eminently a practical man, and has been
in the habit of dealing with industrial questions all of his
life. He was brought up in the Carnegie iron mills, became a
superintendent, a manager and a partner, and, when the company
went into the great trust, retired from active participation in
its management with an immense fortune. He has built a beautiful
house in New York, has leased an estate in Scotland, where his
ancestors came from, and has been spending a vacation, earned
by forty years of hard labor, in traveling about the world. His
visit to India brought him into a friendly acquaintance with Lord
Curzon, in whom he found a congenial spirit, and doubtless the
viceroy received from the practical common sense of Mr. Phipps many
suggestions that will be valuable to him in the administration
of the government, and in the solution of the frequent problems
that perplex him. Mr. Phipps, on the other hand, had his sympathy
and interest excited in the industrial conditions of India, and
particularly in the famine phenomena. He therefore placed at the
disposal of Lord Curzon the sum of $100,000, to which he has
since added $50,000, to be devoted to whatever object of public
utility in the direction of scientific research the viceroy might
consider most useful and expedient. In accepting this generous
offer it appeared to His Excellency that no more practical or
useful object could be found to which to devote the gift, nor
one more entirely in harmony with the wishes of the donor, than
the establishment of a laboratory for agricultural research, and
Mr. Phipps has expressed his warm approval of the decision.

It is proposed to place the college upon a higher grade than
has ever been reached by any agricultural school in India, not
only to provide for