The liberal hospitality that he dispensed throughout life was a most conspicuous feature in the period thus devoted to practical agriculture. His nature was eminently social, his acquaintance in his high position extensive, his dwelling near one of the great highways of travel through the State in the old modes of conveyance, easy of access, and the exuberance of his farm, garden, orchards and domestic comforts were never more agreeably dispensed than when ministered to the gratification of his friends under his own roof. The cordiality and ease with which he did the honors of an entertainer in an old-fashioned Southern mansion is among the pleasant recollections of not a few between the Potomac and the Mississippi. It was here, indeed, surrounded by a family worthy of the care and affection he bestowed upon them, relaxed from the severe studies and anxieties of official life, in unreserved and cheerful intercourse, that, after all, he appeared most favorably. By his industry, frugality and aptitude for the management of property, he accumulated in a long life an estate more ample than usually falls to the lot of a member of the profession in this State; and although much reduced by the consequences of the civil war, it was still competent to the comfort of his large family. Judge Ruffin was, until superseded by the changes made in 1868, the oldest trustee of the University of the State, and always one of the most efficient and active members of the board. For more than half a century on terms of intimate intercourse with its Presidents, Caldwell and Swain, and the leading Professors, Mitchell, Phillips and their associates, he was their ready counsellor and friend in any emergency; whether in making appeals to the Legislature in behalf of the institution for support and assistance in its seasons of adversity, or in enforcing discipline and maintaining order, advancing the standard of education or cheering the labors both of the faculty and students. His criterion of a collegiate education was high, and he illustrated by his own example the rewards of diligent and faithful study. He retained a better acquaintance with the dead languages than any of his compeers we have named except Gaston, Murphy, and Taylor. In ethics, history, and the standard British classics his knowledge was profound. In science and in natural history, more especially in chemistry, and those departments pertaining to agriculture, horticulture, pomology and the like, his attainments were very considerable, as they were also in works of _belles-lettres_, poetry, taste and fiction, at least down to the end of the novels of Scott and Cooper. He worthily received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of North Carolina in 1834, and the like honor is believed to have been subsequently conferred by his alma mater at Princeton.