The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1912-12-10
AT SPEED WELL FARMS
Legislators Inspect Lyndonvlle AZ
ricultural School.

| riculturai Scnooi.
Lyndonville, Dec. 8.-Speedwell
Farms and the Lyndon Agriculture
School and institute were visited yes
terday by a delegation of about u
| legislators, including the house COM
mittees ON agriculture and appropri-
ations. The object of this visit was
to give the lawmakers better
knowledge of what is being done and
likely to be done in this State for
elementary agricultural education.
Several bills pending call for appro-
| priations for work of this kind and 1t
was believed that knowledge of
what Theodore N. Vail is already do
| ing for the State in this line and
some conception of what he plans to
do would have a direct bearing upon
| the need for such expenditure.
II is whispered that the whole
school and possibly more than the
school, may some day become the
property of the State, but however
that may be, the work being done
there may fairly be considered a
| State asset.
| The visitors went on the morning
train and were conveyed back by a
| special in the evening. At Lyndon
vile station they were met by vehic-
| les ranging from automobiles 10
stages, and by John w. Titcomb who,
besides being most enthusiastic
and efficiene fish and game commits
sioner, is the manager of Mr.. Wallis
immense Vermont estate At Lyn-
don Tanfnr hn cl
into the commodious three-story dor
mitory and treated to just the whole
some, substantial farm dinner that
the boys of 1.-THE agricultural school
have every day.
Actual Farm Life.
In the dormitory, as elsewhere, it
is the policy of the school to repro
duce as nearly as possible the condi-
/ tons of actual farm life, that stud
ents may not be rendered unfit for
real life by an unreal training. The
only luxuries afforded are those
which every farm may afford Stud
ents are required to do janitor work
and to wait on table.
Practically all the food served at
the school is raised on the school
farm. The legislators were treated
to pork raised there. potatoes and
tomatoes grown there, butter from
the school creamery, pickles and
celery which originated in the farm
gardens and so on through the whole
menu.
After dinner the guests enjoy ed
| the luxury of visit to Speedwell
Farms, Mr.. Wallis 5000 acre estate
A drive over public highway which
Mr.. Vail has mecadamized at his own
/ expense, across a beautiful white
cement bridge between two artificial
ponds, with the valley of the Pas
sumpsic stretching off for miles be-
hind them and Burke mountain loom
ing up blue in the frosty atmosphere
brought them to the biggest and most
palatial of barns and the finest of
horses. Whether Shetland pony, or
Kentucky or trotting bred, each
horse is perfection of his kind. But
the most striking of all is great
black Percheron, big as an elephant
almost and beautiful as a horse can
be.
Pigs Fastldiously Neat.
They next passed through a 'as-
tidiously appointed piggery, where
aristrocratic swine have forgotten
the very existence Of dirt, and visited
the great cattle barn, where dwell in
state the wonderful Swiss Brown
prize-winners for which the Speed
well Farms are famous. The legis-
lators next visited the greenhouses
where was jungle of palms, orchids
and tropical fruit to say nothing of
great clusters of grapes still ripen-
ing on the vines.
After this excursion through the
wonderland of Speedwell Farms, the
lawmakers were driven to the in
stitute building a fine, substantial,
modernized structure, where the
girls of the surrounding country
learn domestic science, and boys
from far and wide pursue academic
courses in the institute or profit by
drill of hand and head in the school
of agriculture. The school of agri-
culture and the Lyndon Institute are
really separate though they use the
same building for classroom work
and cooperate to some extent in
courses of instruction.
After the classroom building came
the farm and farm buildings, forge
and carpenter shop, which are really
the laboratory Of this remarkable in
etitutfOn of learning The farm con.