.<^ <^ '^C DATE DUE 1 UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LIBRARY S 74 N83N8 1853 M TRANSACTIONS ^axislk '^^xmlimnl ^ocietg, FOR 1853 DEDHAM, MASS. : PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY. TRANSACTIONS NORFOLK AamCULTURAL SOCIETY, 1853 DEDHAM, MASS. PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST, MASS. 6 5 0. 0 (o ... 1 ^ >^3 PRE3S OF DAMRRLL & MOORE AXD OEORGE COoLIDriF, Id DEToNoniRE Stiikkt, Boston. CONTENTS. Page. Act of Incorporation, 5 Constitution, 6 Officers of the Society, 1853, 11 Names of members, 1 -, Address,'by Rev. F. D. Huntington, 29 Reports : — Of the President and Secretary to the Board of Agriculture,- • • 50 On Farms, 63 On Ploughing — Double Teams, 72 On Ploughing — Single Teams, 72 On Ploughing — Horse Teams, 73 On Spading, • 73 On Fat Cattle, 74 On Bulls, 74 On Cows, 76 On Heifers, 81 On Working Oxen, 83 On Steers, 84 On Horses, 84 On Swine, 86 On Poultry, , 98 On Dairy, c)<) On Bees, jOl On Roots and Vegetables, 102 On Fruits and Fruit Culture, IO4 On Flowers, HI On Ladies' Work, 113 On Bread, j J4 On Agricultural Implements, 115 On Straw Goods, 116 On Carriages, 117 On Cloth, Flannels, Hosiery, Wool, Carpetings, &c., 117 On Leather, [18 On sundry Manufactures, 118 On Fruit Trees, II9 On Grain Crops, 1 20 Mr. NeAvhall's Crop of Ruta Baga Turnips, 137 IV Page. Presentation of the World's Prize Plough, 139 On Poultry, 141 Report on Essays, — 146 On the Potato, 147 Address before the Norfolk County Agricultural Society, 161 Treasurer's Report, 1 75 Circular of the Norfolk Agricultural Society, 176 Order of Exercises on the Fifth Anniversary of the Norfolk Agricultural . Society, 179 List of Premiums awarded 1853, 193 List of Premiums offered for the year 1854, 196 Rules and General Remarks, • • • 216 COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. IN THE YEAR ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND FORTY-NINE. An ACT to incorporate the Norfolk Agricultural Society. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows : Sect. 1. — Marshall P. Wilder, Charles F. Adams, B. V. French, their associates and successors, are hereby made a corporation, by the name of the Norfolk Agricultural Society, for the encouragement of Agriculture and Horticulture, Manufacturing and Mechanic Arts, in the County of Norfolk, by premiums and other means ; with all the powers and privileges, and subject to all the duties, restrictions, and liabiUties set forth in the forty-second and forty-fourth chapters of the Revised Statutes ; and said Corporation may hold and manage Real Estate not exceeding in value twenty-five thousand dollars, and Personal Estate not exceeding a like sum, for the purposes aforesaid. Sect. 2. — This Act may be accepted by the Society at any meeting called according to the provisions of its Constitution. House of Representatives, March 26, 1849. Passed to be enacted. Francis B. Ckowninshield, Speaker. In Senate, March 27, 1849. Passed to be -enacted. Joseph Bell, President. Blarch 27, 1849. Approved. Geo. N. Brigqs, CONSTITUTION. Preamble. Impressed -with the importance of the advantages to be derived, by associated effort, in carrying forward successfully every great enterprise having for its object the improvement of the community, the Farmers, Horticulturists, and Manufacturers, of the County of Norfolk, have resolved to establish a Society, and to be governed by the following Constitution, Article J. — The association shall be known by the name of "The Norfolk Agricultural Society," Article IL — There shall be a President, six Vice Presidents, a Corresponding and Recording Secretary, Treasurer, and Ex- ecutive and Finance Committees, who shall be Trustees, ex officio. Besides these, four additional Trustees shall be chosen from each town in the County, excepting the city of Roxbury and the town of Dorchester, which shall each be entitled to six. All officers enumer- ated in this article shall continue in office until others are elected in their stead. Article III. — All officers of the Society shall hereafter be chosen by ballot. The election shall be determined by a majority of votes. Article IV. — The names of persons to be balloted for at the annual election, shall be contained on one ballot ; and the offices for •which they are respectively nominated shall be distinctly designated. Article V. — There shall be two stated meetings of the Society, annually, viz. : On the last Wednesday in March and on the last Wednesday in September ; the same to be held at ten o'clock in the forenoon, at such place as the Trustees shall appoint ; of which they shall give notice — in two of the Boston newspapers and in the County papers — at least three weeks previous to the meeting. Article VI. — There shall be, after the year 1849, an annual choice of officers, viz., at the stated meeting in March. In the choice of officers, thirteen members shall make a quorum ; in the transaction of other business, seven may make a quorum. Article VII. — If, at any meeting of the Society, or of the Trustees, the President and Vice Presidents shall be absent, the members present may appoint one from among them to preside at such meeting. Article VHI. — The President, or, in case of his absence, either of the Vice Presidents, with the advice of the Trustees, may call a special meeting of the Society ; or Avhenever -written application, •with reasons assigned therefor, shall be made by any twelve members of the Society to the President and Trustees, they shall call such meeting. Article IX. — The meeting of the Trustees shall be held at such time and place as they shall, from time to time, agree upon ; and seven of them, including the presiding member, shall make a quorum for doing business. Article X. — The Executive Committee shall recommend such measures as they shall judge necessary and expedient ; and, in con- junction ■with the Trustees, shall regulate all the concerns of the Society, during the intervals of its meetings ; propose such objects of improvement to the attention of the public, appoint such commit- tees, publish such communications, and offer such premiums, in such form and value, as they shall think proper — provided the premiums offered do not exceed the funds of the Society ; and shall lay before the Society, at each of its meetings, a statement of their proceedings, and of the communications made to them. Article XI. — No transfer, by the Treasurer, of any stock, evi- dence of debt, or security, shall be deemed valid, unless made by the order of the Finance Committee. Article XII. — Any person, by paying into the treasury the sum of five dollars, and signing the rules adopted by the Society, shall be entitled to all the privileges of membership. Any lady may be ad- mitted, by paying the sum of two dollars. Article XIII. — The Recording Secretary shall take minutes of all the votes and proceedings of tlie Society and of the Trustees, and enter them in separate books ; and shall record all such communica- tions as the Trustees may direct. Vlll Article XIV. — The Corresponding Secretary shall write all letters relating to the business of the Society, and answer all letters to the Society, as the Trustees shall direct. Article XV. — The Treasurer shall receive all moneys due or payable to the Society, and all donations that may be made to it ; for which he shall give duplicate receipts — one of which shall be lodged with the Recording Secretary — and make a fair record thereof; and, from time to time, pay out such moneys as he shall have orders to from the Trustees ; and shall, annually, and whenever thereto required, render a fair account of all his receipts and pay- ments to the Society, or a Committee thereof. Article XVI. — A Committee shall be chosen at the annual meeting in March to audit the Treasurer's accounts, and to report thereon at the next March meeting ; and the same being accepted, shall be entered by the Recording Secretary on his books. Article XVII. — In case of the death, resignation, incapacity, or removal out of the County, of either of the Secretaries, or the Treasurer, the Trustees shall take charge of the official books, papers, and effects, belonging to the office that may be vacated, and give receipts for the same ; which books, papers, &c., they may de- liver to some person whom they may appoint to fill the office until the next meeting of the Society ; at which time there shall be a choice. Article XVIII. — A Committee shall be appointed, from time to time, severally to solicit and receive subscriptions for raising a fund to encourage the objects for which the Society has been founded — the improvement of the Agriculture, the Horticulture, and the Manu- factures of the County — the same to be sacredly appropriated to these objects only. Article XIX. — All donations made to the Society shall be per- manently invested ; the income only to be applied to premiums and gratuities, unless specially directed otherwise by the donor. 1853. President. MARSHALL P. WILDER, of Dorchester. Vice Presidents. BENJAMIN V. FRENCH, of Braintree, SAMUEL D. BRADFORD, of West Roxhury, CHEEVER NEWHALL, of Dorchester, JOHN GARDNER, of Dedham, RALPH SANGER, of Dover, CHARLES C. SEWALL, of Medfield. Corresponding^ and Recordings Secretary. EDWARD L. KEYES, of Dedham. Treasurer. HENRY W. RICHARDS, of Dedham. 3 12 ExecMtivc Committee. MARSHALL P. WILDER, of Dorchester, OTl^ QKRY, of Foxhoro\ SAMUEL WALKER, of Roxhury, THOMAS MOTLEY, of Dedham, AARON D. WELD, of West Roxhury. Finance Committee and Auditors. EBEN WIGHT, of Dedhavi, JOHN GARDNER, of Dedham, ENOS FOORD, of Dedham. Board of Trustees. BELLINOHAM. ASA PICKERING, PAUL CHILSON. BRAIN TREE. EDWARD POTTER, DAVID N. HOLLIS, JONATHAN FRENCH, CALEB HOLLIS. BROOKLINE. MARSHALL STEARNS, SAMUEL HENSHAW, JAMES BARTLETT, JOHN H. DANE. CANTON. ELISIIA WHITE, JOHN ENDICOTT, WILLIAM TUCKER, ELLIS TUCKER. con ASSET. JAMES C. DOANE, SOLOMON J. BEAL, LABAN SOUTHER, WILLIAM B. JOHNSON. DEDHAM. SAMUEL C. MANN, JESSE FARRINGTON, WILLIAM KING GAY, *NATIIANIEL COLBURN. ♦Deceased. 13 DORCHESTER. EDWARD KING, ELI W. ROBINSON, JOHN II. ROBINSON, HENRY LIVERSIDGE, AARON D. CAPEN, SAMUEL J. CAPEN. DOVER. HIRAM W. JONES, BENJAMIN N. SAWIN, CALVIN RICHARDS, AARON BACON. FOXBORO' . FREEDOM GUILD, SIMEON BURR, ALFRED HODGES, JEREMIAH M. SHEPARD. FRANKLIN. WARD ADAMS, ARCHIBALD DE WITT, GEORGE W. MORSE, MAXCY FISHER. MEDFIELD. THOMAS T. RICHMOND, GEORGE DAVIS, GEORGE F. ADAMS, HENRY PARTRIDGE, Jr. JI E D W A Y . HORATIO MASON, JOHN P. JONES, ABU AH R. WHEELER, JAMES P. CLARK. MILTON. CHARLES BRECK, JOHN ARNOLD, Jr., LEWIS COPELAND, ELIJAH TUCKER. N E E D U A M . WILLIAM FLAGG, DANIEL KIMBALL, WILLIAM PIERCE, GARDNER G. HUBBARD. QUINO Y . HORATIO N. GLOVER, JOSEPH W. ROBERTSON, JOSIAH BRIGHAM, WILLIAM S. MORTON. RANDOLPH. ROYAL AV. TURNER, ADONIRAM WHITE, JOSEPH LEEDS, C. S. HOLBROOK. 14 ROXBUKT. AARON D. WILLIAMS, GEORGE DAVENPORT, CHARLES ELLIS, JAMES GUILD, WILLIAM B. KINGSBURY, JOHN FUSSELL. SHARON. OTIS JOHNSON, WILLIAM R. MANN, CALVIN TURNER, ASAHEL S. DRAKE. STOUGHTON. LUCIUS CLAPP, ROBERT PORTER, LUTHER PORTER, SAMUEL W. CURTIS. WALPOLE. TRUMAN CLARKE, JOHN A. GOULD, FRANCIS W. BIRD, SHADRACH S. PIERCE. WEST ROXBURY. STEPHEN M. WELD, THOMAS MOTLEY, Jr., JOSEPH H. BILLINGS, JOHN J. LOW. WEYMOUTH. LEMUEL HUMPHREY, NATHANIEL SHAW, JAMES JONES, JAMES TIRRELL. W R E N T H A M . CALVIN FISHER, Jr., BENJAMIN HAWES, ARTEMAS ALDRICH, HARVEY E. CLAP. 15 Snmo nf Mtm\itt3 BELLINGHAM. Chilson, Paul Pickering, Asa BRAINTREE. Arnold, John B. Arnold, Joseph A. Bowditch, Ebenezer C. Chace, George Dyer, Isaac Dyer, Joseph Fogg, Charles M. French, Benjamin V. French, Mrs. B. V. French, Jonathan Hollis, Caleb Hollis, David N. Hollis, John A. Hollis, Josiah Ludden, Joseph T. Mansfield, John Mansfield, Warren Morrison, Alva Niles, Daniel H. Penniman, Ezra Perkins, Oliver Potter, Edward Randall, Apollos Stetson, Amos W. Stetson, Caleb Thayer, Ebenezer C. Thayer, Hezekiah Vinton, Thomas B. Wales, George * Willis, George W. 2. 30. BROOKLINE. Amory, James S. Babcock, George Bartlett, James Bird, Jesse Blake, George Baty Craft, Samuel Crafts, George Corey, Elijah Corey, Timothy Dane, John Dane, John H. Ferris, Mortimer C. Fisher, Francis Frazar, Amherst A. Griggs, Thomas Henshaw, Samuel Howe, James Murray Howe, John Jameson, William H. Kellogg, Charles D. Lawrence, Amos A. Shaw, G. Howland Stearns, Charles, Jr. Stearns, Marshall Thayer, John E. Trowbridge, John H. Turner, John N. CANTON. Abbott, Ezra Billings, Uriah Billings, William Bowditch, J. I. Bray, Edgar W. Capen, Samuel 27. 16 Deane, Francis W. Deane, Thomas Downes, George Draper, Thomas Dunbar, James Dunbar, Nathaniel Eldridgc, John S. Endicott, John * Everett, Leonard Penno, Jesse, Jr. French, Thomas Fuller, Daniel Guild, Horace Howard, Lucius Huntoon, Benjamin Kinsley, Lyman KoUock, Jeremiah Lincoln, Frederic W. Mansfield, William Mcintosh, Adam Mcintosh, Roger S. McKendry, William Messinger, Vernon A. Messinger, Virgil J. Morse, William Shepard, James S. Spare, Elijah Spaulding, Corodon Stetson, Joseph Sumner, James T. Tilt, Benjamin B. Tucker, Edmund Tucker, Ellis Tucker, Jedediah Tucker, Nathaniel, Jr. Tucker, Phineas Tucker, William Wcntworth, Edwin Wentworth, Nathaniel White, Elisha White, Nathaniel S. COIIASSET. Beal, Solomon J. 47. Beal, Mrs. S. J. Doane, James C. Johnson, William B. Sohier, William D. Souther, Laban Tower, Abraham H. DEDHAM. Adams, Benjamin H. Alden, Abner Alden, Francis Alden, George Alden, Leonard Alden, Samuel F. Ames, William Babcock, Samuel B. Bacon, Silas D. Baker, David A. Baker, Joel M. Baker, Obed Baker, Timothy Balch, Benjamin W. Balch, Joseph W. Barrows, Thomas Bates, Martin Bosworth, Isaac C. Boyden, Addison Boyden, Benjamin * Bryant, Austin Bullard, Elijah * Bullard, John Bullard, Lewis Burgess, Ebenezer Capen, Charles J. Capen, Oliver Carroll, Sanford Chase, James M. Chickering, Horatio Clapp, Edward Clapp, Nathaniel Clark, Joseph W. Clarke, Horatio Cleveland, Ira Cleveland, Stephen H. 17 Cobb, Jonatban H. * Colburn, Nathaniel Colburn, Waldo Coolidge, George Cormerais, Henry Crane, Ebenezer P. Crocker, Amos 11. Crossman, Charles B. Damrell, William S. Daniell, EUery C. Day, Joseph Deane, John Dixon, Rufus E. Doggett, John Donah oe, Patrick Do^vning, James Drayton, John Duff, John Dunbar, Thomas, Jr. Eaton, John Eaton, John Ellis Eaton, Luther Ellis, Calvin F. Ellis, Charles Ellis, Colburn Ellis, George Ellis, MerrUl D. Ellis, Oliver Fairbanks, WilUam Farrington, Charles Farrington, James Farrington, Jesse Farrington, John B. Fisher, Alvan Fisher, Ebenezer S. Fisher, Freeman Fisher, James R. Fisher, Joseph Fisher, Thomas Foord, Enos French, Abram Fuller, George Gardner, John Gay, Ebenezer F. Gay, Jeremiah W. Gay, Lusher Gay, William King Green, Elisha Guild, Francis Guild, Henry Hartshorn, Richard D. Haynes, Edward, Jr. Holmes, Edward B. Houghton, William A. Howe, Francis Howe, Josiah D. Johnson, EdAvin Keyes, Edward L. Kingsbury, Lewis H. Kingsbury, Moses Lamson, Alvan Mann, Henry A. * Mann, Herman Mann, Samuel C. Mann, William H. Marsh, Mrs. Martin Marsh, Martin Mason, William Mitchell, Francis N. Morse, John Morse, John L. Motley, Thomas Noyes, Nathaniel Otis, Benjamin H. Patterson, Albert C. Phillips, Freeman Quincy, Edmund Rand, Edward S. Rand, WilUam T. Rice, John P. Richards, Abiathar Richards, Edward M. Richards, Henry White * Richards, Jeremiah F. Richards, Mason Richards, Reuben Richards, Reuben A. Richards, William B. * Redman, Alfred Russell, Ira Sampson, Ezra W. Scardan, David 18 Scott, Joel Shaw, Charles B. Sherman, Charles B. Sherwin, Thomas Sigourney, Henry H. W. Smith, Lyman Smith, Nathaniel Smith, Nathaniel, Jr. Smith, Thomas Spear, Henry F. Stimson, Jeremy Stone, Eliphalet Sumner, William R. Sutton, Enoch Taft, Ezra W. Thompson, Joshua P. Thompson, Robert Tubbs, Benjamin H. Vose, George H. Washburn, Alexander C. Weatherbee, Comfort Weatherbee, Jesse Weatherbee, John E. Webb, Moses E. Webb, Seth, Jr. * White, John Whiting, Hezckiah Whiting, Moses Whiting, William Whitney, Samuel S. Wight, Ebenezer * Wilson, John F. Winslow, George DORCHESTER. Abbott, William E. Adams, Benjamin W. Austin, William R. Bacon, Charles H. Baker, Edmund J. * Baker, Walter Baldwin, Enoch Barnes, Parker Barry, Michael 0. 161. Bass, Seth B. Billings, Lemuel Bispham, Eleazer J. Bradlee, James B. Breck, Henry Jr. Brewer, Darius * Brooks, Noah Brooks, Williams B. Browne, George M. Capen, Aaron D. Capen, Samuel J. Capen, Thomas W. Carruth, Charles Carruth, Nathan Childs, Nathaniel R. Clapp, John P. Clapp, Richard Clapp, William Codman, John Codman, Robert Copenhagen, Arnold Wm. Crane, Nathaniel Curtis, Ebenezer Gushing, Abel Gushing, Abner L. Gushing, Benjamin Davis, Barnabas Dearborn, Axel Denny, Daniel Dorr, James Downer, Samuel, Jr. Follansbee, Isaac W. Foster, William H. Fowler, M. Field Gilbert, Samuel, Jr. Gleason, Moses Gleason, Roswell Gleason, Sewall Grew, Ilenry Groom, Thomas Hall, Oliver Hall, Samuel Hammond, Horatio Hardy, Alpheus Hewins, John C. Hickey, William 19 Holbrook, Nathan Holmes, Ebenezer Hooper, Franklin Henry Hooper, Robert C. Hooper, Robert C, Jr. Houghton, George A. Howe, Charles Humphrey, Henry Hunt, Charles Jacobs, Benjamm Jones, Nahum King, Edward King, Franklin Lee, James, Jr. Leonard, Joseph Liversidge, Henry * Liversidge, Stephen Marshall, William May, John J. Means, James H. Mears, John Mears, John, Jr. Miller, Erasmus D. Minot, John Moseley, Flavel Nazro, John G. Newhall, Cheever Newhall, John M. Pay son, Thomas Perrin, Augustus W. Peters, Henry II. Pierce, Charles Bates Pierce, Edward L. Pierce, Jesse Pierce, Lewis Pierce, Robert Pierce, William Pierce, William B. Pierce, William P. Pope, Alexander Pope, William, Jr. Preston, Edward Preston, John Preston, John, 2d Prince, WiUiam G. Prouty, Lorenzo Richardson, George Richardson, William II. Ridcout, Asa Robinson, Mrs. Diantha A. Robuison, Eli W. Robinson, John H. Robinson, Stephen A. Ruggles, Edward 11. R. Safibrd, Nathaniel F. * Scudder, Horace Spear, Luther Spooner, John P. Sumner, Clement Swan, James Temple, Hannaniah Temple, WUUam F. Thayer, Benjamin W. Tileston, Edmund P. Tileston, Samuel Tolman, Ebenezer Tolman, William Train, Enoch Trcmlett, Thomas Trull, John H. Trull, Mrs. J. H. Trull, John W. Tattle, Joseph Vose, Robert Vose, Robert, Jr. Welch, John H. Welch, Mrs. J. H. Whipple, John L. Wilder, Marshall P. Wilder, Mrs. M. P. Williams, Sidney B. AVoodman, James Worthington, William Worthington, William F. Wright, Edmund Wright, Mrs. Edmund Wright, Otis 142. DOVEK. Allen, Jared Allen, Timothy 20 Bacon, Aaron Baker, Jabez, Jr. Battelle, John BattcUe, Ralph Bigelow, Calvin Bigelow, William A. Chickering, Daniel Chickering, Otis Cleveland, William Goulding, Henrj Jones, Hiram W. Mann, Daniel Mann, Daniel F. Mann, Hollis Newell, Jesse Perry, Elijah Perry, Mehitable Richards, Calvin Richards, Luther Sanger, Ralph Sawin, Benjamin N. Shumway, Amos W. Shumway, John W. Smith, Abner L. Tisdale, William Upham, Walter W. Wall, Patrick Wilson, Edwin Wilson, Ephraim FOXBORO', Aldrich, Henry D. Belcher, Lewis W. Burr, Simeon Capon, James Carpenter, Daniels Carpenter, Erastus P. Cary, Otis Fisher, Albert Foster, James W. Guild, Freedom Hersey, David 31. Kingsbury, Joseph Leonard, Samuel B. Leonard, Sanford Pettee, David Pettee, Joseph G. Pettee, Simon E. Shepard, Jeremiah M. Sherman, Job Sumner, Charles C. Torrey, Martin Wyman, David FRANKLIN. Adams, Peter Adams, Ward Baker, David P. Bullard, Piam Daniels, Albert E. DeWitt, Archibald DeWitt, Mrs. Mary Ann Fisher, Herman C. Fisher, Maxcy Fisher, Walter H. Green, Martin Harding, Lewis Hills, Theron C. Knapp, Alfred Metcalf, Alfred G. Metcalf, William Miller, John W. Miller, Philip W. Morse, George W. Morse, Joseph Nason, George W. Ray, James P. Ray, John P. Rockwood, Erastus Thayer, Davis, Jr. Wadsworth, Joseph H. Whiting, Joseph Whiting, Joseph M. Whiting, William E. 23. 29. 21 MEDFIELD. Adams, George F. Allen, William C. Baker, Joseph Balch, Albert Bullard, John E. Carson, Joseph Chenery, William Cheney, Nathaniel H. Cheney, Seth Cushman, Jacob R. Davis, George Ellis, Caleb Ellis, John Ellis, Samuel Fisher, Hinsdale Fisher, Wm. Quincy Fiske, George Fiske, Isaac Hamant, Caleb S. Hamant, Charles Hamant, Daniels Harding, Nathan Hartshorn, Joseph Hartshorn, Warren Hewins, William P. Partridge, Mrs. E. A. Partridge, Henry, Jr. Richardson, Simeon Richmond, Thomas T. Roberts, Mrs. Helen M. Roberts, Robert Salisbury, William Sewall, Charles C. Mrs. Smith, George M. Stedman, Cyrus Thayer, Elijah Turner, John A. MEDWAY. Adams, Edward Adams, Elisha Adams, Lyman Adams, Wyman 37. * Barber, George Gary, William H. Clark, James P. Clark, Willard P. Crosby, George Daniels, Adams Daniels, Jas. Willard Daniels, Paul Daniels, William Ellis, James H. Fisher, Milton M. Harding, Theodore Henderson, William Hurd, Julius C. Jones, John P. Kingsbury, Gilbert Lovell, Asahel P. Lovell, Zachariah Levering, Warren Mann, James Mason, Horatio Metcalf, Luther Morse, Asa D. Partridge, Clark Partridge, George Richardson, E. F. Richardson, Jeremiah D. Richardson, Joseph L. Richardson, Richard Slocumb, Christopher Walker, John L. Walker, Timothy Wheeler, Abijah R. MILTON. Adams, Samuel Amory, Francis Arnold, John, Jr. Babcock, Josiah Babcock, Lemuel Whitin^ Babcock, Samuel Baldwin, Edward Beal, Jonathan Bradlee, John D. 87. 22 Breck, Charles Bunton, Jesse Cook, Samuel Copeland, Charles L. Copeland, Lewis Cornell, Walter Cunningham, C. Loring Cunningham, Francis Davenport, Lewis Davenport, Nathaniel T. Davis, William 11. Dudley, Benjamin F. Emerson, Joshua Fenno, Rufus P. Forbes, Robert Bennett Hall, George W. Hinckley, Thomas H. Hobson, Miss Martha J. Houghton, Jason W. Hunt, Charles K. Hunt, George Kent, George W. * Pope, Ebenezer Raymond, George Robbins, James M. Rodgers, Octavius T. Rogers, Henry, Jr. Rowe, Joseph Thayer, Jason Thompson, George Todd, Robert M. Tucker, Elijah Tucker, Timothy West, Henry NEEDHAM. Alden, Otis Ayhse, Dr. Bullen, Ichabod Carter, Josiah H. Daniell, George K. Dewing, Warren Eaton, George E. Emmons, Charles P. 43. Flagg, Solomon Flagg, William Gardner, Elbridge Gilbert, Luther Harris, John Harris, John M. Harvey, Stephen F. Holland, John Hollis, A. P. Hubbard, Gardner G. Hunnewell, H. H. Kimball, Benjamin G. Kimball, Mrs. Betsey G. Kimball, Daniel Kingsbury, Lauren Kingsbury, Lemuel Kingsbury, Thomas Kingsbury, William A. Longfellow, Nathan Lovell, Charles B. Lyon, William Mansfield, John Mansfield, Robert McCrackin, John Mills, John Mills, Matthias Morton, Otis, Jr. Morton, William T. G. Newell, Artemas Newell, Benjamm Noyes, Josiah Peabody, Ezekiel Pierce, William Revere, George Robinson, Henry Sawyer, Otis Scudder, Marshall S. Seagrave, Saul S. * Shaw, George W. Snelling, Nathaniel G. Stedman, Francis Stedman, WiUiam M. Stone, David Stone, H. L. Sumner, Lewis * Ware, Dexter 23 Ware, Reuben Wells, John Whitaker, Edgar K. Wood, Henry QUINCY. Adams, Charles Francis Adams, Ebenezer *Bartlett, Ibrahim Bass, Josiah Bass, Lewis Baxter, Daniel Baxter, Elijah Baxter, George L. *Beale, George W. Beals, Nathaniel H. Billings, Lemuel Brackett, Lemuel Brigham, Josiah Carr, John J. Curtis, Noah Eaton, Jacob F. Emmons, N. H. Fellows, Ensign S. Frederick, Eleazer Glover, Horatio N. Greenleaf, Daniel Greenleaf, Thomas Horton, Llovd G. Miller, Charles E. Morton, William S. Munroe, Israel W. Newcomb, James Newcomb, John B. Quincy, Josiah * Richards, Lysander Robertson, Joseph W. Rodgers, Chft SavU, John Spear, Charles A. Stetson, James A. Thayer, Gideon F. Torrey, William Walker, William 58. White, Nathaniel Willard, Solomon Williams, Francis RANDOLPH. Alden, Ebenezer Alden, Horatio B. Belcher, J. White Breck, Nathan Burrill, David, Jr. Ilolbrook, C. S. Holbrook, Elisha Leeds, Joseph Maguire, James Maguire, James F. Mann, Ephraim Niles, Jacob Stevens, Richard Tower, Isaac Turner, Royal W. Turner, Seth Wales, Apollos Wales, Ephraim Wales, John Wales, Jonathan Whitcomb, A. W. White, Adoniram White, Jairus White, Jonathan ROXBURY. Adams, Thomas Andrews, Alfred A. Appleton, Charles T. Bacon, William, Jr. Bartlett, Henry S. Blake, S. Parkman Bowditch, Azell Bray, Charles F. Brigham, Joseph L. Bryant, Charles W. Clarke, John J. * Codraan, Henry 41. 24. 24 Comins, Linus B. Copeland, Benjamin F. * Copeland, Charles Copeland, Franklin Cotting, Benjamin E. Crawshaw, Joseph Crosby, Benjamin H. Dav'en})ort, George Davis, Oilman * Dearborn, Henry A. S. Ellis, Charles Ellis, Charles M. Eustis, William Fisher, Warren Fiske, George A. Francis, Ebenezer French, Jonathan French, Mrs. J. Fuller, 11. Weld Fussell, John Gardner, Fr.incis Gould, Joseph D. Gray, llein-y D. Guild, Frederic Guild. Henry Guild, James Hendec, < "harles J. Hewes, John M. Hewins, Whiting Hickhn,:^, <'harles Huston, William R. Keene, James Kidder, Frederic King, William S. Kingsbury, W^illiam B. Kittredge, Alvah Lee, \Vm. Raymond Lemist, Edwin Lewis, Daniel Lewis, Franklin H. Lewis, Samuel S. Lowell, John A. Mann, Benjamin Mathes, Albert R. McBurney, (.'harlcs Mcintosh, William H. Parker, Augustus Parker, George J. Pickering, Henry W. Pike, Charles S. Prcscott, Elijah, Jr. Putnam, Allen Rich, Naphthali D. Ritchie, James Robinson, Jonathan P. Ropes, Joseph S. Sargent, Epes Seaverns, F. W. Shed, Henry P. Simmons, David A. Skinner, Elias Sleeper, John S. Stevens, Amos Stone, Ebenezer W. Thwing, Supply C. Tolraan, James Trcscott, Elijah, Jr. Vinson, Cornelius M. Walker, Samuel Way, Samuel A. Whiting, William (Montr. Av.) Williams, Aaron D. Williams, Aaron D., Jr. Williams, David W. Williams, Mrs. D. W. Williams, G. Foster Williams, George H. Williams, N. D. * Williams, Stedman Wilson, George W. Wis wall, Samuel 93. SHARON. Bullard, Benjamin Drake, Asahel S. Gay, George W. J lewins, Elijah Johnson, Lucas Johnson, Otis Lothrop, Howard A. 25 Mann, George R. Mann, William R. Morse, Harvej Sanger, John M. Turner, Calvin STOUGHTON. Atherton, James Atherton, William Belcher, Orin Belcher, William S. Capen, Samuel Clapp, Lucius Curtis, Samuel W. Gay, Lemuel Goldthwait, Daniel A. Hodges, Leonard Hodges, Samuel W. Littlefield, Charles Page, Frederick A. Porter, Luther Porter, Robert Southworth, Amasa South worth, Asahel Southworth, Consider A. Sumner, Francis C. Swan, Elisha Talbot, Newton Tolman, Ebcnezer W. Tucker, Wales WALPOLE. Allen, Jeremiah Allen, Lewis Bacon, William Bird, Charles Bird, Francis W. Boy den, Horatio Clap, Edmund W. Clap, Warren Clarke, Mrs. Betsey M. Clarke, '^I'ruman Ellis, James 12. 23. * Ellis, Joseph Gould, John A. Gray, Smith Guild, Charles * Hawes, Joseph Hyde, George B. Lewis, Willard Neal, Benjamin Pierce, Shadrach S. Plimpton, Calvin G. Shepard, E. Smith, Metcalf Stone, Ebenezer Thompson, Edwin WEST ROXBURY. Allen, Stephen M. Arnold, Joseph Bacon, Daniel C. Bacon, William B. Bailey, Luther C. * Balch, Joseph Billings, Joseph H. Billings, Mrs. J. H. Billings, Miss Mary Blake, William Bond, George William Bradford, Samuel D. Bradish, Levi J. Brown, Benjamin Browne, Horace E. Cabot, Stephen Cass, Aaron Cass, Francis W. Cass, Henry W. Curtis, Joseph H. Dabney, Charles W., Jr. Davis, Francis Dixwell, John J. Dudley, Ephraim M. Dunn, Theodore Gooding, George Greenough, David S. Hall, David P. 25. 26 Head, Francis C. Henchman, Nathaniel H. Hewins, Charles A. Keith, William Lamb, Reuben A. Lawrie, Andrew B. Low, John J. Mackintosh, Charles G. March, Andrew S. Mcintosh, William Meserve, Andrew T. Meserve, Isaac H. Minot, George R. Morse, Charles Motley, Thomas, Jr. North, George G. Orange, Thomas Page, Kilby Parkinson, John Pratt, John C. Prichard, Jeremiah Richards, Edward Russell, George R. Sampson, Charles Shaw, Francis G. Smith, Joseph M. Smith, Melancthon Spaulding, Solomon R. Sturgis, James Sturgis, Russell Swett, Samuel W. Taft, Reed Townscnd, David Tufts, James Weld, Aaron D. Weld, Mrs. A. D. Weld, Aaron D., Jr. Weld, Miss A. K. Weld, Stephen M. Westcott, Stephen Whytal, Thomas G. Williams, Dudley Williams, Henry H. WiUiams, Moses WiUiams, Thomas B. 78. WEYMOUTH. Burrill, Ansel Fifield, Noah Howe, Appleton Humphrey, Ebenezer Humphrey, Lemuel Hunt, Atherton N. Hunt, Elias Jones, James Kingsbury, Fisher A. Loud, Joseph, Jr. Nash, Abner P. Richards, Elias Shaw, Nathaniel Shaw, Theron V. Tirrell, Albert Tirrell, James Tirrell, Wilson White, James WRENTHAM. Aldrich, Artemas Cheever, Otis G. Clap, Harvey E. Clay, Nehemiah Everett, Edmund T. Everett, Melatiah Faxon, Francis G. Fisher, Calvin, Jr. Fisher, Hiram B. Fisher, Silas P. Ford, Peter Fuller, Chauncy G. Grant, George Hawes, Benjamin Ide, Edwin S. Larkin, Lyman B. Mann, Howard Parker, E. B. Pond, Jabez E. Pond, Liicas Starkey, Gardner H. 19. 27 Stone, Curtis Ware, Asa White, James A. 24. MEMBERS RESIDING OUT OF THE COUNTY. De Reynoso, Beraard Edmands, J. Wiley, Newton Goddard, Thomas, Boston Gould, George, Newton Minot, George W., Boston Total, 1017 members. Sampson, George R., Boston Slade, Robert, Boston Smith, George W., Boston Tappan, Lewis W., Boston 9. ADDRESS, REV. F. D. HUNTINGTON ADDRESS Mr. President and Gentlemen : When the farmers throw down the trophies of their twelvemonth's pacific campaign before the public, and so put their husbandry on exhibition, they virtually challenge a public criticism. Leaving, then, for a day, the natural privacy of their profession, they make confession of larger relationships. They acknowledge amenableness to those common standards of judgment that try the whole man- hood. It will be only according to the liberties, if not indeed the rights, of the jubilee, therefore, if we hold their calling up into the light of those catholic claims imposed by the thinking and the policy, the conscience and the affections of humanity, in these times. Perhaps I may find an intimation that you prefer what suggestions are to be offered here should follow this liberal course, in the fact that you have invited a voice from outside your own regular ranks — shall I say the voice of a deserter, or an exile, or an admiring ally ] — to address you. To aid my purpose, let us take the farmer on his own domain. Let us go back and meet him on the farm. Suppose that, standing there in some interval of his work, he looks up and about him : he will very likely notice four familiar objects in his scenery — because they are the Common monuments of our Puritan inheritance, and the 4 30 universal signals of our republican and New England order of life. I mean the School-house, the Town Hall, the Church, and the Homestead. Let me take these four structures as the visible symbols of four great classes of his relations to the world, which I wish to bring under your survey ; and thus they shall fix the method and the limits of my address. Without threatening you either with a scientific dissertation, or a political treatise, or a sermon of theology, or a domestic lecture, I wish to repre- sent, if I can, under these convenient types, something of the dignity of your freehold, as farmers, in our modern, American heritage of free thought, free industry, free worship, and free affections. I. As towards the School-house just as it stands, with its various equipments for the intellectual discipline and furnishing of youth, I take it for granted every Massachu- setts farmer will follow the most careful and most generous treatment. He will be its eager and unflagging patron. He will rob his own children of no portion of their right- ful bounty in its sphere of noble study, by calling them off to help out the meagre force of labor at home, thus starving their brains while he fattens his mutton ; inverting nature, by growing lordly sheep and sheepish boys. He will grudge no taxation that provides the best teacher that the most thorough committee can hire. He will see to it, that in its architecture, its order, its surrounding beauty, and all its apparatus and appointments of instruction, this little Smithsonian Institute of his district represents the best genius of the neighborhood, and reflects the educa- tional wisdom of the day. But beyond this ordinary fealty to good learning, I take the School-house as signifying also that whole contribution of science to agriculture, wliich is now one of the acknowl- edged and prime requisites of your vocation. And here my subject opens into a somewhat wider scope. 31 There is a rather irregular and unorganized, but on the whole progressive, hody of information^ which is called, by courtesy, the Science of Agriculture. It is gradually taking the shape and proportions, under your intelligent authors and periodicals, of other and exacter sciences. If we seize this body of knowledge precisely in its present position, and speak to its present exigency, we shall find, I suspect, that it has passed through its first stage, viz., its era of general discovery, and is now waiting for the patient hand of detailed experiment, and the organizing effects of a comprehensive induction. I said it has passed through its first stage, or era of general discovery. The fact is, it passed through that stage so long ago, and stood still so long after, that it might reasonably have been doubted whether it ever meant to go on. If there is anything amazing in human history, I suppose it is the stationary attitude assumed by this radical employment of man, from the period of its origin in Syria, which must have been somewhere near Adam's time, down to about the present century. Consider that the race of proper ploughs — the only ploughs we should recognize as worthy the name — the basis implement of the whole business — is only about eighty years old. One apology off'ered for this protracted state of catalepsy, is an alleged double misfortune agriculture has had to sufi"er from climate — both extremes entering into a con- spiracy to put it back ; since the tropics ripened everything for it without the trouble of cultivation, while the frozen regions made it so much trouble to cultivate that it would not try. This explanation would answer pretty well, if nature had not happened to spread out a belt of territory round the globe, which is neither arctic nor torrid, but temperate, of very respectable dimensions, and admirably fitted for any progressive demonstrations, had our enter- prising forefathers been so inclined. The simple truth 32 may as well be confessed at once : Our progenitors liked fighting one another better than fighting stumps and swamps. That was the world's boyhood, and, like the few boys left in our day, who are not oldish little men in short clothes, those swift and supple sinews chose the bow and spear, with the big wrestling-ground of barbarian tribes, before the civilizing but rather fatiguing pickaxe and shovel. A better excuse, I am inclined to think, tliough far from a sufficient one, will be found in the paradoxical circumstance, that the great advantage of agricultural pursuits has been their great hindrance. I mean the general independence they allow, as providing in themselves the necessities of living. This supersedes commerce, removes competition, and so tends to quench enterprise. In affirming agricultural science to have passed through its epoch of general discovery, however, I referred not so much to the rude and slow advances it made for thousands of years earlier, as to the more recent period when it took a sudden start forward, and may be said to have first risen into the dignity of an intellectual concern. These dis- coveries moved in two directions, chemical and mechanical. Chemistry applied analysis to the whole material of agri- culture, plants and animals and all products, as well as soils ; whereas the stupidity of ages had been taking it for granted that, since all earth is earth, it matters nothing what its elements are, so the seed be under ground. Mech- anism stretched out its hand, and gave the husbandman a new set of tools — a branch of the general turn for mechanical invention and elaboration that has marked the mental movement of the last hundred years. By both these agencies, not only w^as a new principle introduced into the action of agriculture, but at the same time accrued an enlargement of its spirit and motive. Of course, at the first, chemistry did very little with her 33 crucible, and mechanism comparatively little with its smith- eries and factories. Both have, probably, only begun their magical economics yet. But it is none the less true, that in the simple discovery of the fact^ that chemistry, along with geology and physiology, has relations to farm- ing, and could he made to help it, in the bare establishing of that fact, was a grander crisis in the history of this business than is likely ever to come again. So in the demonstrated feasibility of labor-saving machinery, after the wooden ploughshare and the live-stock threshing-ap- paratus of centuries, there was the turning of a corner, the opening of a new page, the sudden light that always breaks in with the sunrise of a fresh principle, which did more for you than perhaps can be done again. So that if it is modest ever to predicate such a thing of any interest, in a day so pregnant with wonders as ours, we might venture to declare, that the grandeurs of reformation, the cardinal revolutions, and the Lutheran age, in agricul- ture, are passed. What, at any rate, is the precise direction of the efforts wanted now, and demanded of you, as farmers who, in cultivating the earth, mean to cultivate yourselves"? It will be found, I suspect, that the answer to this question is as practical a theme, and as well worth your study, as any that the proprieties of to-day could possibly suggest. We hear much vaguely said of the need of enlightened farming — it has been the topic of repeated occasions like this : it is worth inquiring, where, precisely, at just this time, that light should be made to fall in. In the first place, the posture of New England farmers as they are, exposes the need of rousing still further what may be called the spirit of the profession. It has its own rights, privileges, duties, and titles to homage. I remem- ber, of course, how the very Festival that calls us together, the wide departments of your annual display, and especially 34 the spacious and convenient edifice now given up to the uses of your enterprise, with similar gatherings enlivening other counties and states in this part of the year, are proofs that this process of quickening has already begun, and goes on. But then I remember, as well, how large a numerical majority of those who are called farmers of Norfolk fail altogether to represent themselves at the Fair ; how many others are present, not as competitors iii the arena, but only as gazers at a brilliant but distant and uninstructive pageant ; and how inconsiderable, if I may say so, is the number that carry away such vital impulses, or such solid ideas, as will tell on the direct management of their o^\ti acres, and their next year's seed, and crops, and stock. This living and ardent interest which turns every item in the spectacle, every colt and cow, pig and parsnip, heifer and hen, rug and rareripe, to a stimulating value, and nerves a more resolute purpose to make the most of each man's, or woman's, personal chance, — this is the sort of ambition that pushes your pursuit forward, converting it from a servile drudgery to one of the elegant arts, and winning for it heights of excellence and honor. I am afraid it must be acknowledged that intellectual apathy has been the drowsy curse that has so long som- nambulized agriculture ; and if it will serve to soften the accusation from an outside party, I will put the pulpit in with the plough ; though who knows but if there were less dull planting, the wholesome contagion would run up the pulpit stairs, and there would be less dull preaching "? Or, if it seems ungracious to press this charge just "svhen the sleepers are waking up, I remind you, on the other hand, that these occasional signs of animation only cast the adjacent obstinacy into a more palpable disgrace. It is not that cheering signals of invigorated intelligence arc not stirring the air ; but that these better notions are not made to work their wav out, and settle down on the actual 35 fields, and regenerate your daily operations. Hence, I say, what you want is, by the help of the School, some systematic means of pushing every improvement out into the mass that have not yet arisen to come in search of it. If you will allow me to ask questions. Are there no tokens to be found among you, that some of the primary maxims of the improved husbandry are as completely disregarded as the bulletins of the Chinese rebellion ■? Are there no fields lying in Norfolk, this fall, whose dwarfish crops proclaim as dismally as language could, that it has not yet been found out by their owners that potatoes and turnips crave potash, that clover and peas want lime, that wheat and oats hunger for silex and phos- phoric acid, just as voraciously as the Irishman in the kitchen wants the potatoes, horses the clover, or children late home from school the wheat 1 Are there not certain triangular stains smirching the sides of barns under the stable- windows, left there by man- ure-heaps that took all weathers with no roof, which tell every passer-by that these prodigal feeders, though they locked the barn doors every night, and set traps for foxes, and sent constables after the thief that stole their apples, forgot that the atmosphere has a sly way of turning robber, as well as giver, — that the sun and rain filch as as well as fertilize, — and so did not shelter nor fasten down, by boards and muck and forest leaves and plaster, those volatile salts and gases which these noiseless marauders were snatching up into the sky, — so much gold out of their' pockets 1 You would hardly applaud the thrift of a man- ufacturer that throws away a quarter of his raw material. Are there no specimens of stock, in the yards and pas- tures of these towns, rawboned and diseased, and lean as the leanest kine of Pharaoh, — walking illustrations of the " anatomy of melancholy," — which seem to show that the problem in their keeping has been reduction to the 36 lowest terms, — and the multiplying of exceedingly vulgar fractions of beasts, — or finding the equation between the minimum of attention and the maximum of emaciation 1 Is there none of this stock usurping the place, and consum- ing the fodder, which of right belong to cattle, that should be here in Dedham taking premiums, — stock that has been badly selected, badly crossed, badly reared, — incarnated or rather inskeletoned libels on the whole law of reproduc- tion'? On the other hand, have you all discovered the real phil- osophy and economy there is in feeding your cattle on pine boards ? in other words, discovered that if you put them into a warm stable, instead of letting them shiver on the north side of it, all the drizzly and frosty weather of winter, you thereby provide fuel for their vital sustenance which the furnace in their lungs would otherwise have to borrow from their stomachs, to keep up the temperature, at the cost of a fifth more in quantity of meal or hay? Have you acted on the false presumption that young cattle will eat up the third-rate stuff, like stalks and straw, with a better appetite, if they are not allowed anything else, — whereas the truth of their dietetics is, that they will swallow this inferior food far more easily at noon, if you lubricate their throats with a little more epicurean catering for breakfast ? Are there no dilapidated buildings, filthy front yards, staggering fences, broken tools scattered over haymows and cornbins and woodpiles, instead of hanging cleansed and polished in a tool-room, — all vile witnesses how it is forgotten that prosperity never takes the arm of a sloven"? Now these neglects seem to show that, over and above the attainments of a few scholarly persons, or rather between their science and the practical work of the multitude, there is needed a connecting link, — something to kindle in Messrs. Smith, Jones and Brown, out on the lots, an 37 appreciative concern for the writings and deductions of Messrs. Liebig and Norton, Hitchcock, Jackson and Har- ris, in their studies and laboratories. An exhibition is opened to some purpose, if an emulation is provoked by it that sends every man home from cattle-show, determined that he will be a master on his acres, and not a plantation slave driven by the whip and gong of those two tyrannical overseers, necessity and routine, — an original creator by his mind, and not the mere manual drudge of habit. But something else is needed besides this wakening of ambition. It cannot be denied that the large accessions recently made to agricultural knowledge, fail sometimes to secure confidence and adoption among practical men, from a cause more legitimate and a little more reputable then sheer stupidity. A distrust has been created towards the recommendations of professedly scientific authorities, by a plain contradiction between the theory and the trial. You are told, perhaps, with an air of dogmatic assurance, by some book or lecturer, that by a certain tillage you may be sure of gathering eighty bushels of Indian corn, from an acre of your ground. You comply with the conditions, but gather only forty bushels of the corn. Your weekly agricultural paper extols poudrette, and advertises for the dealer. You send the money, and get the article, but not the expected profit. A theory advises you that if you will put in a subsoil plough, you will double your harvest. You try it, and harvest less than last year. The Agricultural Society recommends a new mowing-machine ; you pay for it ; it does not work, and lies rusting, an ugly eyesore, in the shed. These are very common experiences in all parts of the country. In each case, there is partial information, which is one form of falsehood. The dressing was applied to the wrong soil ; the subsoiling was tried in the wrong place ; the machine was handled in the wrong way, or had some loose screw. The pupil is deceived, 38 cither by superficial instruction, charlatanry, or his own haste; and so book-farming falls into contempt. Both are wrong, the instruction and the contempt. Let us see why. The main oTersight of the recent efi'orts at improvement has been a too hasty generalization, and a deficiency in patient, painstaking, accurate records of experiment. A few brilliant announcements have dazzled our eyes ; san- guine lips have trumpeted abroad spurious maxims ; and the golden age of great profits and easy times has been heard knocking at the doors. Following the explosion of this sophistry is apt to come a reaction of discouragement, as unreasonable as the flattery. What the interests of your profession seem to me to be imperatively demanding just now, therefore, will be two things : 1. The most rigid and thorough experiment, as to every detail and particular of every mode of tillage, enriching and renewing of lands, breeding of stock, and new implements, taking into ac- count all the most minute and variable conditions, data, circumstances, attending that experiment : and 2. A faith- ful, exact, and systematized registration of every such experiment, including specific statements as to all the par- ticulars alluded to. This is that secojid stage, following the era of general discovery, which agricultural improve- ment has next to pass through; a period of thorough experiment, and scrupulous registration. Till we have the tests and tables only thus to be furnished, we have no rational induction, and of course no development of principles that will give us a proper science. The more extensive and diversified these experiments on a given question are, throughout the country, the sounder your basis for an induction. Then let these records, bearing the stamp of more precision than is common in county reports hitherto, duly and responsibly authenticated, be brought together and collated by competent hands, — 39 and you have got a body not of theories but of facts, — facts that will justify a broad and impregnable general- ization, fit to be published, and constituting a noble con- tribution to substantial science. One prime difficulty that will attend these processes will be an inadequate sense of the liability to deception. If you would meet those enemies to real advancement from which the farmer has already suffered so much, — careless statements and half-established conclusions, — you must bring into the field exact weights and measures, exact ob- servations of climate and weather, exact attention to every element that may influence the result. Such credulous rules of evidence as suffice for tea-table gossip, or stories of table- rappings, will not answer. There must be a search for disturbing causes, not on one side only, but all sides. If the case is one pertaining to an out-door crop, like wheat for instance, consider the variety of elements you have got to watch and include in your report. There is, first, the quality, species and pedigree of the seed sown ; there is the time of sowing ; there is not only the composition of the soil, but its mechanical preparation, its comminution by plough and harrow, its situation as regards exposure to the sun, latitude, springs of water, and the antecedent crops taken from it; then there is the whole subject of manures, as to ingredients, condition, amount, and mode and time of application ; then the direct treatment of the crop on the ground ; the cost of labor ; then the subtle and fugitive meteorological changes ; then the relation of the growth to diseases ; still further, there is the harvest- ing, threshing, and winnowing, — for it has lately been ascertained that wheat subjected to one of the new ma- chines, though fair in appearance, loses somehow a portion of its germinating, or reproductive power; and finally, not only the measurement but the weight of the yield, — for, as you know, wheat of the same apparent plumpness 40 ranges over a difference of five or ten pounds' weight to the bushel. Now, it is not till you have brought into your registration each of these twenty-three specifications that you can be said to have furnished returns of this crop of wheat. There is not one of them, which a thorough- bred scientific manipulator, if the case were transferred to the laboratory, w^ould not despise himself for leaving out. The same necessity for thoroughness exists in all other branches of the business. AVhen you take up a lump of premium butter, you have hold of what seems to be a very simple, home-made fact, and a very pleasant one. But this fact has an antecedent biography, — and before the oily cake has slipped through your fingers, or elsewhere, if you are a good farmer, and a good Yankee, you have at least a dozen questions to ask about it, — how the fact has come to be, — all the way from the cow and the cow's mother, and grandparents, on to the toast. You want a written natural history of this lump, ah ovo usque ad ma- lum. Nor is farming singular, in this respect, among the sciences. Look at the nicety of astronomical calculations. Look at the minute mixtures of the chemist. Look at the hair-balances, and tests of exquisite delicacy, in every phi- losophical apparatus. Observe the almost awful precision exacted in clinical surgery. Furnish a Herschell's dis- coveries without the achromatic lens and infallible mount- ings of his telescope and siderial clock, with the horizontal and vertical adjustments of transit instruments, air-bubble and spider-lines ; conceive of a Bergman's or Faraday's analyses, without atomic weights and unimpcacliable tables and mathematical proportions, and you may expect a perfectly intelligent agriculture, without this sharp in- spection, and these unquestionable statistics. Why should you desire exemption from them? They are what invest your calling with its lasting interest, — its intellectual 41 charm. They furnish the sort of fascination that is likely to pique and attract the curiosity of bright young men. I can even imagine a man's having his sleep broken, his pulse accelerated, and his nerves in tension, while he watches for the impending result of one of these elaborate and exciting experiments, like the issue of some well- matched game. I have spoken of the need of these tentative processes. I appeal to your own experience. There are few of that more progressive class of farmers that form societies, and arrange exhibitions, like this, who have not some time been victims of crude statements. Indeed, it is quite ex- traordinary how many of what are now the prominent subjects, most interesting and most discussed, relating to practical husbandry, remain from year to year open and un- decided questions, with about as much said on one side as the other ; when nothing is wanted but trials enough and attention enough, to settle them peremptorily. In Mas- sachusetts alone, there are farmers enough at work, if they would continue their observations, to determine any of them in two seasons. Make what allowance you will for that wide margin of uncertainty that always hangs about a business so dependent on seasons and weather, still, I say. Nature, reverentially and resolutely studied, never cheats her disciples. Find her laws, and, rely upon it, they never will miscarry. You have only to talk with your neighbors, or turn over the files of any agricultural journal, to find examples of what T refer to. What uni- versal rules have been established, for instance, as to the mode of applying manures ] Yet why should there not be rules, for all cases, as much as for the silversmith in mingling metals, or the apothecary drugs ? Subsoiling has been preached for some five years past, both here and in England, as the Columbus discovery of modern tillage, revealing to every farmer a new territory underneath his 42 cultivated one ; you are pointed to Lord John Eussell's turnips, and the Rackheath wheat. But does the practice actually apply as well to New England as Old ] Is there an offset to its benefits in later crops and more exposure to frost 1 AVhat are its relations to under-drainage ] Docs it relieve wet lands, or render them more hopelessly soaked and spongy 1 Is it equally good for a dry, friable soil on a sand-hill, as I have seen to be true in one case, or is it any better than the common deep ploughing as they practise it in Surrey and some parts of Yorkshire? Now what I affirm is, that each of these queries ought to have one, definite, indisputable, experimental answer, recorded where it can be got at ; an answer put beyond the region of con- jecture, and rooted in authenticated facts. Again, of the application of lime, the preconceptions of chemical theory would seem to promise that it belongs only to non-calcareous soils ; yet does not experience show instances where a calcareous soil has been specially fer- tilized by carbonate of lime ? And if so, what are the con- ditions that generate the anomalous result ? Again, within two months, I have seen in a single number of a popular agricultural periodical, two communications, both in a very positive tone, taking precisely opposite grounds on the question whether, in salting hay, the salt may be thrown on the top of the mow and left to inter- penetrate the mass, or must be cast into each separate forkful, or layer, as the hay is pitched from the cart. Again, the Deerfield farmers, in this State, close by the celebrated residence of Henry Colman too, dispute one another to this day as to the value of the " old tore " to a grass crop, some of them insisting that it helps the next yield, and others that it is better to keep the sward close. Or, once more, Avhat is the right law of producing fer- tilizing agents 1 Must we continue the old fashion of 43 spending the winter in feeding out all that we spend the summer in gathering in, copying the circle of the snake that swallows his tail, or is there some better way ^ And will more be gained by following the famous aphorism of the Earl of Leicester, " The more meat a ploughing farmer sends to Smithfield, the more corn he may sell at Mark Lane," or by raising young cattle 1 Now what may be asserted of each of these mooted points is, not that every one of you may not have an opinion upon it, and be very sure he is right ; but that his next door neighbor is likely to have an opposite opinion ; whereas, both being reducible by experiment to fact, there ought to be, not opinions, but knowledge. The condi- tions of a given result ought to be as clearly determined as the oxidation in electro-magnetic machinery, combus- tion under a steam engine, or the proportions of chlorine and hydrogen in thirty-seven pounds of muriatic acid. In looking over the several reports of the county societies for the last year, I see complaints on half the pages of non-compliance with the rules of the committees in refer- ence to accurate returns. One reason, I suppose, is, that a farmer begins the season with no idea of competing, and therefore keeps no record; but unexpectedly finding Nature has favored him with a remarkable i)roduct, he takes it to exhibition, hoping his blunder will not forfeit his chance. This suggests whether it would not be well worth while, not only to withhold the premium on ac- count of the omission, but to establish a separate prize for the best method and most accurate specimen, in reporting the whole internal history and transactions of the hus- bandry of the year. AVhat the school-house is saying to the farmer, there- fore, as the voice of the age in behalf of his science, is : AVhile you are never to be afraid to think, and never to stop that study which is both the pabulum and gymna- 44 slum of the thinking fliculty, — be specially true to this second stage of agricultural advancement, — the stage of patient, various experiment, and exact registration. Hold up steady lights over your own path, and your children's. Ecmember the distinction between theory and science. Theory infers from a single fact, or a few facts, and fills out the deficit with a guess. Science requires a broader base for its induction, and facts enough to justify the af- firmation of a law. What we want to come at, in Nature, are her laws, not stopping with sporadic and fragmentary phenomena. What we want of the separate phenomena, is to marshal and compare them, and so make them ancil- lary to conclusions. Interrogate Nature, then. Besiege her with all manner of curiosity. Pound, and push, and caress, and entreat, and importune her, till you wrench her secret from her bosom. It is to incite our faculties, that obscurity veils so many of her treasures. To this end, that he may be his own professor, scholar, secretary, and reporter, let every farmer have as complete an apparatus as he can afford, for conducting his examina- tions, and nice admeasurements. Then let him enter his daily record, wdth special respect for arithmetic. Let him keep a running debt and credit account with every acre of his land, as much as with his blacksmith and grocer, and post his books. This will sharpen his wits, double his relish,, and shed a steady intellectual irradiation through his whole employment. Then, in addition, there ought to be some national pub- lication, emanating from an agricultural department in the government, where nothing should be included but reliable results, collected from the entire survey of facts, somewhat like tlic Philosophical Transactions of a Royal Academy, only made up more directly from the sources of practical life. I must not leave speaking of the relation of the farmer 45 to the School-house without asking why agriculture, besides making the most of all existing forms of education from the primary school to the college, — and there certainly ought to be no further delay, it seems to me, in introducing into the higher classes of our rural district schools some succinct and lucid text-book, like that of Professor Nash, for example, — but, besides that, why agriculture may not have a larger school-house, i. e., a college, of its own. It will be a striking case of forbearance, or something worse, gentlemen, if the grand staple business and fundamental oc- cupation of this country is content much longer, without endowed and furnished institutions for training young men up to the highest pitch of agricultural accomplishment possible to the age. When it can be shown how the art of destroying men's lives is nobler than the art that saves them, or havoc and slaughter are better than peaceful production, then the government may be able to apologize for not giving agriculture a West Point, as well as war, and for not representing the soil in the Cabinet. The national policy of maintaining a Central Bureau for the army and navy, with none for husbandry, is much like a man's expending so much on a choice collection of pistols and poisons, that he has nothing left for good meat and flour. Of the question, whether a thorough agricultural edu- cation can be got to the best advantage on a private farm, or at some public seminary, there is undoubtedly much to be said on both sides. Probably the true method will be very much like the usual preparation for the professions of law and medicine, where a part of the course is taken among the lectures, and libraries, and cabinets of a uni- versity, and the remainder among the usages of the office. For mastering the science proper, the student will need such resources as few private citizens can afford ; but he must also handle the tools. Without the first, he will be 46 an empiric ; without the last, an awkward visionary. In the former case, his hands may be brown, and his face crimson ; but in the latter, his fingers will be white, and his wliole management of a decided green. Whatever great achievements have been reached in any field of thought have owed their finest impulses to an educated class, minds trained by special opportunities, some " sacred band," whose learning has quickened the ambition of the mass, and raised the intellectual tone to their own level. In the air that circulates through New England, no man's position is so humble as to forbid his aspiring to be one of that order of nobility. It is for the common interest, at least, to provide means to multiply it. If the inherent passion for excellence in what you under- take, if a love of perfection for its own beautiful sake, if an honorable professional pride, will not compel these energetic reforms, then let that lower motive, which insti- gates you to take off from each acre, every year, more dollars than you put on. This lightening labor, or increasing the proceeds of labor, which amounts to the same thing, is not the attempt of idlers to shirk their task. It has a better justification. Take facts as they stand. Why do your young men run, as by some universal instinct, from the farm, where they were born, to the city, where they so often learn to wish they had not been born anywhere 1 Chiefly — whatever explanation they may put forward as having a handsomer look — chiefly because on the farm there is supposed to be an inevitable doom to hard, monotonous, wearing bodily toil, from daylight to sundown, life through, with no room for mental expansion, or generous tastes, or social recreation; and, secondly, because, after all this labor, the farmer makes too little money. Nor will my faith in young men's natures sufl"er me to believe this is always a sordid calculation with them. For, in thmking of money, they 47 think of it oftener as a means than an end. They want it for what it brings. On the farm, very frequently, are rooms without books, walls without pictures, manners without grace, clothes without fitness, and grounds with- out shaping or decoration. On the contrary, the city merchant buys a library and works of art, sends his children to schools where they learn to move with elegance as well as to ci[)her and parse, gets garments that are finer and fit, and is not so exhausted physically at night- fall as to prefer sleep to any company or book. He comes back into the country, and lays out a beautiful estate, sometimes with statelier animals, and selector fruits, and tidier fences and hedges, and more blooming gardens on it, than his neighbor, who has all the while been staying there and making farming the business of his life. Now, it would be a hard task in persuasion to convince most young men that these things are not good, not desirable, and that the dollars which command them are not of the nature of an advantage. I confess 1 should be a bad subject for such persuasion myself Besides, these things are all of the nature of picture-work ; the boy cannot help seeing them; they work upon him while he stops on his way from pasture under the fragrant shrubbery, or peeps through the pickets at the mellow peaches and pears. I know perfectly how apt his sanguine blood, and his ignorance of the ninety-odd failures in a city for every single success, are to put a fallacy into his plans and cheat his choice. But none the less is it true, wliat he goes to the city for is a chance, though but a chance, for certain means of refinement, liberality, and width in the whole style of life, such as scarcely a mere farmer about him, in the old way of farming, has displayed. Who ever knew a confident and chivalrous youth to doubt he should be one of the five that succeed, though five hundred fail 1 And, moreover, many young men at that aspiring period of life, 48 before the cliarm and glory of early ideals have faded off, thirst honestly for more stimulus to mental action, more enlarging ministries to thought, than they have found in rural places. This they dream of finding in the pressure of crowds and the sharp collisions of traffic. Perhaps they dream delusions ; but this is the feeling. Depend upon it, if you would hold your sons and brothers back from roaming away into the perilous centres, you must steadily make three attempts — to abate the taskwork of farming, to raise maximum crops and profits, and to sur- round your work with the exhilarations of intellectual progress. You must elevate the whole spirit of your vocation, for your vocation's sake, till no other can outstrip it in what most adorns and strengthens a civilized state. II. I have intentionally used so much space for the scholarly aspects of your profession, gentlemen, that I have left very little for the other three objects in the farmer's outlook, — the Town-hall, the Church, and the Homestead. I shall only touch each briefly, in the way of suggestion. The Town-hall I take as the symbol of your relations to the social compact, the body politic, or by whatever other name you may choose to describe the powers and functions of civil government. And when we have gone to the bottom of the matter, whether by the way of philosophy or Christianity, we shall find that the fundamental idea of politics is mutual protection and friendly intercourse. I do not say of feudal, or partisan, or aristocratic, or im- perial politics, — for the law of their life has too manifestly been mutual repulsion and aggression ; but of the true, ultimate, divine politics. Not to hold each other back, and pull each other down, and rob, and stab, but to con- federate for the common good, and to complete an economy of universal growth, by means of equal labor, whereof all shall take the benefit, — this is the real and providential office, whether of separate empires or of the several inter- 49 ests under the same administration. Hence it follows that you serve the cause of good government when you do two things, — when you perfect your own business as one of the great productive forces which feed and cover hu- manity,— and when you bring that calling into amity and reciprocity with other callings. Unless God fails to fur- nish a law for his children in his own love, the right po- litical state for mankind is the state of brotherhood. The same law holds of trades, handicrafts, professions, as of persons. These pursuits enter into their " holy alliance," when they harmonize the two aims, to improve themselves and help one another. While men and women are good Samaritans, it certainly was not meant that their doings should be priests and levites, or pirates and robbers. The commonwealth is not served, till the different branches of industry merge their jealousies in good-will. You read this law in the beautiful balancings, and musical accord, in which the Divine Spirit has attuned his creation. The very lands you daily traverse and handle, preach the right doctrine of politics. Animal, vegetable, mineral king- doms support one another. Sun and water, vapor and vege- tation, earth and clouds, are ever friendly and hospitable ; they are perpetually running on some missionary errand in each other's behalf; their bureau of benevolence is older than the Holy College. And so it happens that no class of men are so well fitted as you, to re-stamp this divine intention on civil institutions and public laws. If there is any order that can be looked to, to pull off dis- guises from selfish demagogues, — voting greediness and falsehood out of office, and single-hearted patriotism in, — it must be your own order, — the order of Christian chiv- alry, whose knights errant are the njen that " conquer all hard weather," whose martial music is the rustle of corn, and the stroke of flails, — who give you, instead of coats of arms, arms with the coats thrown off, and for banners sheaves of grain. 50 Never turn your backs, farmers, on the Town-hall. Never lose a vote. Take a lesson from your own craft. Try a political candidate by his back-bone. Give the crafty and supple dodger the outside row. Treat the drones as the bees do. Understand the men that are set up for office, and if they are not true men who can show you an honest eye, and a brave conscience, take care to set them gently down again. See that agriculture gets as much honor from legislatures as institutions that are more showy and talkative. Read state papers and public de- bates. Avoid that wasteful economy which shortens the post-office bill, to lengthen the lawyer's. In these times, an agricultural people may know public men, and the true bearings of public events, as well as the busy throngs that trample pavements. There is no genuine reform that is not on the farmer's side, and he is bound to be a reformer of the constructive kind. Kespect for law is in- stilled into him by the benignant regularity of seed-time and harvest. He wants no bullets nor hoofs of war in his meadows and nurseries, and no war-taxation thrusting its bloody fingers into his pocket. Reserve your destructive enginery for the weeds and caterpillars. He is exhorted to temperance by all the intimacy of his habits with nature. Commerce is his common carrier, and asks his protection. Manufactures and metropolis are his market; the jealousy that would cripple them w^rongs himself And all his life, the free winds and open sky over his head nurse in him that vigorous loyalty to republican liberty, that sympathy for the struggles of freedom everywhere, and that intense and rooted abhorrence of all slavery and despotism, which are the birthright of his blood, the in- stinct of his calling, and the inspiration of his soul. HI. By this public spirit, by disinterested patriotism, and a faithful conscience towards human welfare, the farm- er will already have begun to feel holier ties attracting 51 him to citizenship in the kingdom of heaven. It is by divine riglit that the church spire overtops all the struc- tures that men's hands build, and hallows the landscape with its aspiration. Handling God's workmanship every hour, and treading his solemn temple-floor at every step, an unbelieving farmer is in some manner guilty of per- petual sacrilege. If any man's daily task puts him close to the eternal secrets of the universe, and into communion with the awful hiding-places of Almighty power, it is his. If any man is instructed in a creed that is at once devout and charitable, a piety at once reverential Christ-ward and generous man-ward, it is he. The deeper shame to all his manly sense, if he is not touched with the religiousness of his august surroundings, and if he does not blend ^vorship with his work. Nature may not reverse her order, nor unbar her everlasting ordinations, to dispel the illusions of his unrighteous prosperity with a miracle ; but none the less does she carry the scourge in her hand, and keep her eye on him till his time. Christianity is the patron of his labor, ar;d ever has been. While she was shut up in monasteries, it is true she had no chance to breathe on him her benediction. But the moment she was let free from the bondages of that false guardianship, and walked forth in the immortal beauty of her freedom and love, she spoke graciously to the toilsman, and exalted labor. Again the common people heard the Master gladly. The Protestant refor- mation was the charter of emancipated handicrafts as well as the Pentecost of a free church. It stretched its hand over the tilled fields of Northern Europe, and industry woke to a new and nobler life. Thenceforth Christian literature spoke in honor of agriculture, not with the ef- feminate sentiment, the dainty rhetoric, and patronizing pastorals of Pagan classics. Virgil and Theocritus did not know how to glorify work in its influence on character. 52 It was only under Revelation, that the dignity which heathendom had accorded to hands red with human blood began to be transferred to hands stained with the soil. But ever since the ladder of light sprang from beside the Patriarch's head in the stony pasture of Bethel, the Bible has striven to show the husbandman that all his fields open upward into heaven. Our believing ancestry knew what the corner-stone of civilization is. Learn from them, that your acres will lie in the light of the Father's smile, only as they lie un- profaned in the light of Sabbath mornings, only as the church bell rings over their still glebe and resting " cattle on a thousand hills," only as you and your children go reverently up from them to the confessions of the sanctuary. Your waving grain, and ripening corn, and growing herds, will never wear such beauty, as when you pass them on your grateful way to the courts of praise. Make the growing wealth of your better industry to adorn and en- large the outward temples of the Living God. The temple will react with thousand-fold benefactions on your hus- bandry and your heart. Let your devotions take sincerity from your earnest life. Let your creed take largeness from the catholicity of your out-door and heaven-arched employments. The school-house, the farm-house, the town- house, may well bend in homage to the meeting-house. Lor learning without faith is but ambitious discontent; and government without Christianity is power without principle ; and home without the beatitudes is only an animal's stall and bed, with no sacred joy and no spiritual peace. Besides, are there not acres among all your fields, where the only growths are gravestones and mounds, and the flowers planted by mourning love ; where the only seed-time is that ordained by the sad necessity, " That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die ; " and whose only " harvest is at the end of the world ] " At that 53 gate of the valley you will want a warmer and surer faith than Nature and her unpitying skies reveal; another promise of immortality than the poor prophesying of the worm and the chrysalis. You will want a Gospel, a Naza- reth, a Calvary. And so you will go forth from your home, and pass the school-house and the town-house by, and enter in with grateful hope at the church door, on the village green, and bend towards the altar. IV. If now, finally, we go back with him from all these exterior liabilities to his own premises again, we shall hardly need, by this time, to memorialize the farmer of what is required of him in his house. If the school has disciplined his thinking faculty and refined his taste, if the town-meeting has waked in him the exalting sense of citi- zenship, if the church has lifted his heart into communion with the Father of all families, and inspired his conscience by the prophecy of life eternal, he will scarcely be content to live a drivelling dullard at home, to play the selfish tyrant in the little political economy of kitchen and parlor, or to be worse than an infidel by providing not for his own. By derivation, the significance of your common title, husband-m.a,n, holds you to something. Husband- men, I suppose, are not bachelor-men. Our agricultural college, when it is established, will have to find some more consistent style for its diploma than Bachelor of Husbandry. Now, as Nature has done her part towards furnishing a husbandman, by making you a man, she seems to presume you will finish the business by making yourself a husband. And when you have done that initial duty, it will remain for you to take off the edge of two satires I have heard flung at married people, doubtless by some malig- nant critic, who, on being asked what matrimony was like, said it was "going home by daylight, after courtship's masquerade," — and then, what married life was, that it was " matrimony doing penance." Give him the lie. 54 Husband is house-band, or organizer of household hfe. Organize it not only by the sterling, homebred, domestic moralities, but by the binding charm of those thousand amenities that distinguish a cultured home from a bar- barian's hut. The delicate angel of the beautiful knocks at your doors, and begs admission, as well as the strong angel of the useful. Is there the fine eloquence of order, is there the disposing touch of taste, is there the simple and just adorning of nature, round all your doorstones, in all your front lawns, on the walls, and tables, and furnish- ing of your dwellings '? How many hours of a spring morning would it take to embower your windows with all that is graceful in green foliage, and winning in floral splendor 1 Plant trees before you purchase Venetian blinds and painted pickets. You will carry a tenderer and there- fore a manlier heart in your breast all day, if you pass out of a genial circle, through the fragrance of lilies, and roses, and honeysuckles. See that the sons and daughters are interlaced by bands more spiritual than gregarious bipeds. Let the harmonies of evening music weave their souls into some gentle and lofty sympathies, — gaining the boys over from ruder pleasures and doubtful companionships by the pre-occupying satisfactions of a cheerful, and courteous, and hospitable fireside. Starve your palate, if need ever were for such denial, to stock the library. Raise the tone of farm-house table-talk, if you can, — and let the ladies help, — above stale gossip, commonplaces of the day's work, and scandalous tattle. Hang the proceeds of your premiums at cattle-show on the walls, not in battle scenes or daubed millinery, but in the shadings of some pleading picture that reflects a glorious idea, or a heroic sacrifice. House- hold life is not to unfold into grace and moral loveliness by accident, any more than the wealth of your orchard and garden. It must be cultivated. And I take it Christianity speaks of that higher kind of economy, as much as of 55 butcher's meat and breadstufFs, when it pronounces him that provideth not for his own worse than an infidel. Gentlemen, your patience has let me lead you through this round of your relations, to school-house, town-hall, church and homestead, — in unworthy fulfilment of my humble part in this day's varied and cheerful entertain- ments. When I could not show you illustrious oxen, nor aristocratic poultry, nor even an astonishing cheese, you have kindly condescended to let me try in another way, and do as I could by showing what is in my heart towards your work. If I have seemed to judge your call- ing by too strict a standard, I insist that I thus pay it only the profounder compliment. By my love for it, I am jealous that it realize its inherent and providential grandeur. To brave natures, nothing is so exhilarating as an aim that strains the sinews. Everything, in these times, demands that our manhood, trained in whatever school, be made up on a scale of magnanimous proportions. Everything threatens and scorns a contracted culture, a stationary policy, and an inactive brain. But beyond the common appeal uttered to all modern men alike, it is for you to build up a character that is distinctively professional. Show the world examples that will bear inspection, — let who will be the judges, — of the agricultural type of manhood. Boast nothing, but he so much that boasting shall be excluded. If it be true, that your class is now on the eve of vaster achievements than have ever marked its progress yet, these furtherances are to come only through the intellectual wakefulness, the moral sincerity, the domestic virtue, the religious whole- heartedness of you, its most favored members. JIEPOETS REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY. To THE Secretary of the Board of Agriculture. Sir: — In obedience to the Laws of the Commomvealfch, the President and Secretary of the Norfolk Agricultural Society here- with make return of the doings and expenditures of said Society for the year 1853. The year has been favorable to the business of Agriculture, in this county, and the amount of sunshine and rain, heat and cold, has been proportioned to the interests and welfare of Agriculture. Our Society has made advances in skill, energy, liberality and in numbers, and similar efforts and spirit will not only insure her present position, but rapidly elevate it to a still higher rank in the scale of her sister societies. Two hundred additional members have, within the last year, paid the fee of five dollars, and been joined to the Society ; the grounds originally purchased for the Society's exhibitions, have been im- proved, and the number of pens and conveniences multiplied, as the following extract from the speech of the President, on opening the religious services at the church on the day of the Annual Exhibi- tion, will show. " Ladies and Gentlemen of the Society, and Fi'iends of Agriculture: — The revolving year has completed another period in our history, and assembled us to celebrate the Fifth Anniversary of the Norfolk Agri- cultural Society. " While I regret the inauspicious state of the weather, I am happy to congratulate you on our personal prosperity, and on the progress of the Society. ' Our land has not cried against us, nor have the furrows thereof complained ; ' but Spring has sown, Summer has ripened, and Autumn has garnered a bountiful harvest. Nature, from her storehouse of plenty, has poured around us blessings in rich variety and abundance, thus rewarding the husbandman and blessing all the rural industries of life ; ' for the profit of the field is for all, and the king himself is served by it.' " It is suitable that we should meet in this consecrated place, grate- 60 fully to acknowledge the Divine goodness, and to rejoice in the triumphs of science and art, so wonderfully displayed in our age, remarkable not only for enterprise and invention, but for combined and vigorous action ; an age, too, when no friend of the cause of human advancement is per- mitted to loiter by the wayside, or to put his hands to the plough and look back. " To this progressive principle the Norfolk Agricultural Society owes its existence. It was the spirit in which it was born and nurtured — the spirit which animates and sustains its manhood — which has controlled all its movements — which has sustained its present prosperity, and established it on a permanent and honorable foundation. " "Within the short period of five years it has acquired funds to pur- chase the grounds on which its Shows have heretofore been held ; has paid for the structures and other accommodations for the stocks on exhibition ; and the present year has erected an Agricultural Hall, a building one hundred and thirty feet in length, fifty-five in width, and twenty-eight in height. This edifice is pronounced by competent judges firm and durable. It is of good architectural proportions and ex- ternal finish, and contains on the lower floor an exhibition room and ofiices ; and on the upper floor, a spacious dining and audience hall, sufficient to accommodate at its tables more than one thousand persons. " The whole expense of this edifice, its furniture, the ground on which it stands, with its enclosures, will not fall much short of four thousand dollars. Of the sum necessary to meet this expenditure, about fifteen hundred dollars will be appropriated from the sale of the Soci- ety's bank stock ; which, with the liberal donations of sundry gentle- men, and the receipts from the Ladies' Fair, and tickets of admission, it is confidently anticipated, will come within a few hundred dollars of covering the whole expense. " For the increase of its funds, the Society is indebted, among its donors, to Messrs. Samuel D. Bradford, John A. Lowell, J. Wiley Ed- mands, Robert C. Hooper, George R. Russell, and Robert Roberts, in sums of fifty to two hundi-ed dollars each, and for smaller amounts to various other gentlemen, and also ladies. Also, to new members for admission fees, of which there have been added nearly two hundred the present year, giving as a total 1000 names on the roll of the Society." As intimated in the above address, the weather on both days of the exhibition, was extremely unpropitious. A rain storm at that season of the year cannot but operate most fatally to exliibitions of Stock. The imported animals which are the pride of their owners, cannot be forced out to endure the chilling winds and rains of Au- 61 tumn, and such Stock as may be provided by the devotion and public spirit of individuals, on such occasions, suffer in appear- ance, and shrinking into the corners of the pen, exhibit a mel- ancholy contrast to the stately forms and well-dressed exteriors of animals as they expand under the genial influences of a fair day. The exliibition of Stock, therefore, was less extensive and gratifying than on the previous year, but the cause is so obvious, that nothing more need be said on the subject. The Swine, whose bald and unbristled forms seemed to welcome and defy the storm, were as fine a specimen of their race as any which have been exhibited on previous occasions. There was less Poultry than usual, owing to the decline of what has so generally been called the " Hen Fever " in this vicinity. The fowl speculators and connoisseurs have lost something of that ardor and fanaticism that was awakened by those extraordinary prices which served for a time to illustrate the folly of the day, and of mankind. The display of Vegetables was more extensive and creditable than at any previous Show, except the first. Messrs. Copeland of Milton, Wilder of Dorchester, French of Braintree, Weld of Rox- bury, and others, exhibited a great variety of specimens of large growth and abundant yield. The Vegetables of Mr. French have generally, for several years, surpassed all others in size, but owing to the extraordinary richness of the beds on which they are grown, (too rich, we believe,) they do not have that smooth and comely appearance which is so attractive in others. The Ladies' fair, by which a considerable sum of money was raised for the benefit of the Society, together with other subjects, is alluded to in the re- marks of the President, copied above. The Address with which this volume opens, delivered by the Rev. Mr. Huntington, before the Society, proved highly satisfactory, and is eminently worthy the attention of all who desire to act well their part in the affairs of the town or Commonwealth. A list of the premiums awarded, and the Treasurer's Report, will afford a full insight into the active operations of the Society. We will add, as an encouragement to other societies, that the future of the Norfolk Society appears to us unclouded, and that nothing is clearer than that the earnest and active efforts of intel- 6 62 ligent men in the cause of Agriculture cannot fail to be responded to bj the people, and to result in the increased prosperity and gen- eral happiness of the community. Respectfully, your obedient servants. MARSHALL P. WILDER, President. EDWARD L. KEYES, Secretary. 63 REPORT ON FARMS. The Committee have been invited to visit but a single farm during the past year, — that of the Hon. B. V. French, of Braiiitrce. To describe this farm minutely and render a statement, in detail, of its cultivation, its products, its improvements, and their cost, is not, at this time, in our power. Indeed this can be done only by the respected occupant of the farm, himself. Our visit, occupying the greater part of a bright summer's day, was entirely devoted to a view of improvements, made and in progress, which are, at once, upon a grand scale and of thorough workmanship — producing, where finished, results of rare beauty and utility. Whoever wishes to see one of the best examples, in our County, of deep and thorough ploughing, trenching, and draining, or to un- derstand the benefit of the practical application of science to labor, so as to give the highest culture and most attractive finish to a once hard, rough and rocky soil, — whoever is curious to know how immense bodies of granite can be expeditiously removed, and con- verted into massive, durable, and well-finished Avails, or laid as cov- ering for drains beneath the surface ; or to ascertain how unsightly and noxious bogs, and well-nigh worthless swamps and meadows can best be turned into smooth and fertile grass-fields, or prolific cran- berry-beds ; or how a barren, sandy hill-side can be covered with nutritious food for cattle, — whoever would gratify his love of horti- culture, and feast his eye and his palate upon dehcious fruits and beautiful flowers ; — whoever asks if it be possible that a fiirm of little promise and many disheartening features can ever be made a scene of beauty, pleasant to behold, easy to cultivate, remunerative of labor and satisfactory in its whole results, let him go with your Committee when next they are invited to visit this noble fiirm. Observation afforded us ample proof that here was systematic, intelligent labor, under careful oversight and superintendence ; of liberal outlay for desired results ; of generous confidence in the laborer, and care for his comfort and improvement ; — and in return, of sympathy with the employer and a readiness to meet all his 64 wishes ; and of a daily record of operations and results, kept -with business-like minuteness and accuracy, showing at once the cost and receipts, the products and improvements of the farm. Of the different classes of stock, we saw choice breeds of Oxen, Cows, Horses and Swine, which had been selected Avith the greatest care and preserved with unsparing attention to their comfort, nourishment and growth. The farm buildings are all contrived for use, — the most convenient and economical use, — with no expense for mere ornament and show. In the barns and the sties, cattle and swine are at home, and enjoy all the comforts of a proper home. In the house, are apartments for the laborers, provided with every requisite for their ease and enjoyment. A well warmed and lighted reading-room, furnished with many papers of the day, and with books of scientific and general information, invites them to spend their evenings there ; while, in another apartment, a large and well-selected library, contain- ing many of the best Agricultural publications, discovers the resort of the employer for that information which enables him so skilfully to direct the operations of the farm. That the outlay and income of such a farm would more than balance each other, — if indeed so favorable a result as this were produced, — we should not expect in the hands of most farmers. That it is profitable, under its present management, we have no good reason to doubt. But were it not so, we should still account the cultivator of such a farm a public benefactor. A knowledge of his modes of operation and their results would be a public benefit ; and the imitation of his example, with judicious reference to the different circumstances in which it may be applied, would be a source of individual and public wealth and happiness. There are, besides the actual returns in dollars and cents, by which most men do, and perhaps ought, to estimate the present value of their lands, the satis- factions arising from the successful accomplishment of one's plans, bringing health and cheer ; from the knowledge of superior means of support and comfort afforded one's laborers ; from the sight of valuable and permanent improvements made, by which others, if not one's self, will reap large benefit ; — stone walls that are built for ages, and in the construction of which it is difficult to imagine further improvement ; — waste or almost worthless lands reclaimed and rendered bountifully productive ; — trees planted, from which gen- erations are to pluck the choicest fruit ; — and the whole farm made 65 beautiful by skill and culture. There is in these facts much to com- pensate an}' failure of remuneration in hard money, if such failure ensues. Then, too, in the case of Mr. French, there is another and higher satisfaction, the ^vorth of -which is understood by every mind possessed of right sensibilities. He cultivates and adorns, improves and preserves his paternal acres ; — the spot which vras his early home, and is now endeared to him, beyond all others, by associations and remembrances of the purest and most inspiring sort! Who would not wish to preserve the soil, on which his fathers trod and toiled, where his own first breath was drawn, from passing into stranger-hands ? Who would not cheerfully labor through years of hardest business life, for means to be expended in reclaiming and enriching, in preserving and adorning the place, which shall go down, with his ancestral name, to future generations ? Who would not love to be the benefactor of his own and his parents' neighbors and friends, while he lives, and to mingle his ashes with theirs, when he dies? In this utihtarian age and community, such remarks as these may to most men appear absurd. Yet would we think it none the less our duty, in attempting to further the ends of an association like our own, to speak of such motives and encouragements to the farmer ; to inculcate a high regard for the better sentiments and sensibihties of our nature ; and to hold forth to the young the idea that there is something, besides money-making, to be estimated in the plan of one's life ; — that there are more enduring and satisfying riches than the " golden ore," and that such riches lie within the reach of every honest and true hearted laborer on the soil. The following are the crops cultivated by Mr. French, the past season. TILLED LAND. Two acres Peas. Two and a half acres Flat Turnips. One half acre Sweet Corn. One half acre Squashes. One and one half acres Mangel Wurtzel and Blood Beets. Two acres Onions. 66 One quarter acre Parsnips. One half acre Rutabaga. Four acres Cabbages. Four and a half acres Potatoes. One half acre Tomatoes. Two acres Carrots. Two acres Fodder Corn. Two acres miscellaneous matters in the Garden. Total, twenty-five acres. We commend the example of Mr. French to the young and aspiring farmers of our County ; and, referring for more minute information, respecting his farm, to the statement hereto appended, we unanimously award to him the first premium of $25.00. We cannot close this report, which, for want of time, must neces- sarily be meagre and brief, without bringing to notice several facts, suggestive of means to render our farms more productive and profit- able, and therefore, in our opinion, worthy of record. USE OF GUANO. The question is frequently asked, " if Guano, at the cost of fifty dollars per ton, can be profitably used on our soil ; " and also, " if the benefit, where it is at all apparent, is not entirely exhausted by the crop which it first nourishes." In reply, we have to state that a farmer in this County, while yet doubtful of its value as a lasting fertilizer, made with it the following experiments : A piece of grass land, which, for several years, had yielded only small return for mowing, was carefully turned up with a large grass plough, about the last week in August, stirring the soil to the depth of eight inches. It was then rolled with a Stone roller and laid level. This operation was followed by using twice the large square harrow. Peruvian Guano, of more than ordinary excellence, mixed thoroughly with coarse sand, — in order to spread it more evenly, — was then spread, with the hand, at the rate of 350 pounds per acre. The Cultivator was now drawn over it lengthwise and across it. The 67 grass seerl then was sown, at the rate of five pecks Redtop and ten quarts Ilerdsgrass per acre. This was followed hj the Brush har- row, and the whole piece was left perfectly clean and level. The soil varied, In different parts of the field, from a light, gravelly, to a deep, moist loam. The seed germinated quickly and covered the surface, before winter, with a good body of grass. This was not much injured by the severity of winter's frost, except in a few low spots. With the return of spring the grass grew rapidly, vigorously and evenly. The first return of hay was quite two tons to the acre ; — the year following the yield was larger ; and for four succeeding years, it has been, at no time, less than one and a half tons to the acre, with no other manure, during the time, than two light dressings of Compost. This field was distant from the farmer's barn nearly a quarter of a mile, and he believes it would have cost more time, labor and money, to have drawn and appUed manure from his barn, sufficient for the first outlay, than did the whole quantity of Guano and the subsequent dressings of Compost require. To confirm this statement, he adds, that a second trial was made, next year, on an adjoining piece of mainly similar land and with equally beneficial results. Here the effect of the Guano is yet seen, after four years' cropping, in the earlier greenness and growth of the grass, both before and after mowing, compared with that on an adjoining piece of precisely similar soil, which Avas laid down one year later, and had received the benefit of two years' tillage and two heavy dressings of barn manure. The piece first mentioned has since been laid down anew, at the same season of the year, with a fair dressing of barn manure, and in the spring following with a good dressing of plaster and ashes, (Guano not being found at the time in the market ;) but without any thing like similar results. Greatly beneficial results have been observed, by the same farmer, from the use of Guano, upon wheat and other small grains, upon corn fodder, beans, peas, cabbages, squash, and other vines, young fruit trees, currant, and other bushes. Indeed there is no article of horticulture or field culture to which the judicious application of this manure would not, he believes, be of great service. The experience and observation of this farmer lead him, therefore, to venture the opinion that our farms would be, in all respects, bene- 68 fited, and the expense of cultivation lessened by a judicious and liberal use of Guano, wherever barn manure, though it were a gift, must be carted more than half a mile. In this opinion he is con- firmed by the extraordinary effects produced on the nearly exhausted soils of Virginia, and Maryland, and Kentucky, and North Carolina, of which reliable accounts are given in the publications of the day. PHOSPHATES AND SUPER PHOSPHATES OF LIME. Of the value of these fertilizers and their effects, neither expe- rience nor observation enables us to speak with confidence. From the remarks made to us by judicious and intelligent farmers, and from the favorable accounts, which we presume are in all respects reliable, given of experiments made with them, we are induced to urge upon the farmers of this County the careful and thorough trial of their use in different modes of operation, and upon different sorts of vege- table culture. We believe that every new discovery in this depart- ment of agriculture, and every instance of the successful application of concentrated manure to the soil is of vast importance to the farmer, and will help to lessen the hardships of his occupation, to increase the sum of his gains, and to enlarge the opportunity for his rest and intellectual and social enjoyment and improvement. CORN FODDER. The cultivation of this highly nutritious, succulent food was long ago recommended by one of the most eminent Agriculturists in this part of our country, the Hon. Timothy Pickering, of Salem, first President of the Essex Agricultural Society. In this County, as in Essex, and elsewhere, it has been uniformly attended with the best results. Tracts of old pasture land, and of light, sandy soil, have been made to produce large crops of this choice feed for Dairy Cows, at a period when the grass on such land would have failed to furnish even a tolerable supply ; while, at the same time, the soil has been placed in the most suitable condition for future tillage and other crops. 69 The experience of a farmer in this County, who has grown corn fodder for many years, has been an increase of succulent and nutri- tious feed sufficient to sustain double the number of Cows formerly kept on the same land. His mode of cultivating it has been chiefly by the use of the plough. The ground being in proper condition is deeply farrowed with a large plough. These furrows are supplied with a heavy dressing of green manure, or of green and compost thoroughly mixed. Sweet Oorn^ or a mixture of Sweet and North- ern field corn, is sown thickly upon them : and the soil is turned back to cover it by the horse plough passing on each side of the furrow. This, with slight use of the hoe, will sufficiently cover and level the top of the drill, and one repetition of the ploughing and hoeing will finish the necessary labor on the growing crop. The Sweet Corn is found to produce a more succulent and tender stalk and leaf than the White Southern Corn, which is usually planted. Cattle will eat it with avidity and entirely, while the coarse stalk of the other sort is often left untouched upon the field, or in the crib. The leaf is broader and draws more nourishment from the atmosphere, and the whole plant is less exhausting to the soil and more grateful to the Cattle. The superior efiect of its use is also to be traced in the quality of the milk and the butter. The extensive culture of this article is therefore recommended with the full belief that the benefit of it will be seen in the large increase of stock which can be well kept on the same number of acres, and in the general products and profits of our farms. We add, also, that the use of green corn fodder, as the principal food, has been found amply sufficient to sustain and keep in good, thriving condition, store pigs, from its first growth until the autumn frosts are felt. From a brief experience we are disposed to recommend with much confidence the " Stowell," or " Evergreen Sweet Corn," as the most productive variety to be grown on our soil. From this corn, with no great labor or cost, from five to ten tons of the richest feed may be raised on any acre of ground which would have failed to yield, under the best cultivation, three, or even two, tons of hay, or in pasture, to have kept, in good condition, one cow. If cut early and dried in small bundles on the fence, or in stocks, after wilting in the sun, this plant affords excellent winter feed for all sorts of stock, and if 70 chopped and steamed, mixed with meal or barley meal, for fattening cattle and swine. In conclusion, we would once more urge upon farmers the forma- tion and generous support of town clubs, or associations for mutual encouragement and help. These clubs or associations are obviously needed, and may be made the sources of benefits which can hardly be overestimated. They may be particularly^ useful in a large part of this County by enabling the several members of them to avail themselves, at comparatively trifling cost, of a large number and variety of the best Agricultural books and newspapers which a com- mon fund might easily procure. Still further they would, in much the same way, furnish many individuals the help of labor-saving implements and conveniences which their separate means would not aiFord, however desirable such help might be. The most intelligent farmers, and best managed farms will generally be found where valuable Agricultural books and papers are most extensively read ; and the most thrifty and contented cultivators of the soil will gen- erally be seen, we believe, where the best implements and means for saving hard toil and a too often limited time are always at hand. We venture to refer to our suggestions in a former report, upon the expediency of sub-dividing the Committee on Farms for specified objects. We subjoin, also, a series of " standard requisites and evidences of good farming," which we have found in a late number of a distant journal,* and recommend to be kept in view, though it may not be more than approximated to, in deciding the claims of any future applicants for the premiums of this Society. Respectfully submitted for the Committee, by CHARLES C. SEWALL, Chairman. Northern Journal, Watertown, N. Y. 71 "REQUISITES AND EVIDENCES OF GOOD FARMING." 1st. A good soil, well tilled, and kept free of various weeds, both on the fields and the roads. 2d. Lots well fenced, and suited in number to the size of the farm. 3d. Substantial and convenient barns and stables of sufficient dimensions to contain the produce of the farm, and to comfortably house the cattle kept on it. 4th. A judiciously arranged dwelling, in neat condition, with a well and filtering cistern. 5th. Convenient buildings to facilitate the economical management of the farm ; among which may be enumerated a wood house, a wagon and tool house, a work shop, a granary and corn house, a convenient piggery, an ice house, ash and smoke house, all secured against decay by being well raised from the ground and neatly painted or whitewashed. 6th. Convenient yards attached to the barns and stables, so arranged as to prevent wastage of the liquid manure, well sheltered from the blasts of winter, and provided with water for the cattle. 7 th. Door yards laid with grass and flower beds, and shaded by ornamental trees, indicating to the passer-by the dwelling of taste, health and comfort. 8th. A kitchen garden highly cultivated, and containing every species of vegetable that can be raised in our climate, with strawberry and asparagus beds. 9th. A fruit garden or orchard, where choice apples, cherries and plums are carefully cultivated, and where can be found neat rows of raspberry, gooseberry, blackberry and currant bushes. 72 IIEPORTS ON PLOUGHING. DOUBLE TEAMS. Your Committee submit the following Report, viz. : — That nine claims were presented for premiums, and so good was the performance of each claimant, that your Committee would be happy, did the means of the Society warrant, to award a premium to each. But the great expenses incurred by the erection of our Agri- cultural Hall, in connection with the usual demands on the Society's funds, preclude the gratification of their wishes. Your Committee were unanimous in recommending, that the Society's premiums be awarded as follows, viz. : — First Premium, $10, to S. J. Capen, of Dorchester; Second Premium, $8, to Horace and Moses Whiting, of Dedham ; Third Premium, $6, to A. D. Weld, of West Roxbury ; Fourth Premium, $4, to J. W. Daniels, of Medway. In conclusion, your Committee intended to make some remarks on the subject of Ploughing; but, instead of this, they refer with much pleasure to the former Reports of this Society, and especially to an excellent Essay on the " Principles of Ploughing," by Sanford Howard, Esq. Respectfully submitted, RALPH SANGER, Chairman/ Dover, November, 1853. SINGLE TEAMS. Henry Goulding, of Dover ; 1st Premium, $8 ; Prouty & Mears, 155. Timothy Tucker, of Milton ; 2d do. $7 do. 154. A.D.Weld, W. Roxbury; 3d do. $6 do. L. & J. E. Eaton, Dedham ; 4th do. $5 Ruggles, Nourse, and Mason. B. N. Sawin, Dover ; 5th do. $4 , Prouty & Mears. Hollis Mann, Dover ; 6th do. S3 do. B. V. French, Braintree ; 7th do. $2 do. 73 The Committee, owing to all the ground being ploughed well, found it difficult to decide on the Premiums, and particularly on the three last ; and thej recommend a gratuity of two dollars to Daniel Pierce, of Milton. G. G. HUBBARD, Chairman. HORSE TEAMS. The Committee on Horse Teams respectfully report — There were four teams entered for premium ; and they award as follows : — To Isaac H. Meserve, Brook Farm, Roxbury ; with Ruggles, Nourse & Mason's plough ; the first premium of . . ^8.00 To Patrick Wall, of Dover ; with Ruggles, Nourse & Mason's plough ; the second premium, $6.00 To Hiram W. Jones, of Dover ; with Prouty & Mears' plough ; the third premium of $4.00 To Benjamin V. French, of Braintree ; with Prouty & Mears' plough ; the fourth premium of $2.00 HORATIO N. GLOVER, Chairman. REPORT ON SPADING. Your Committee on the Spading Match beg leave to report — That the work done shows a very great improvement from that of last year, in all respects ; and, in your Committee's opinion, there was but a slight shade of difference in the work done, between some who received premiums and those who did not. They award the following : — 1st premium to Peter Ford, of North Wrentham, . . $8.00 2d do. David Scanlan, of Dedham, . 3d do. Wm. Hickey, of Dorchester, . 4th do. Patrick Donahoe, of Dedham, 5th do. Thomas Flinn, of Dorchester, 7.00 6.00 5.00 4.00 74 6th premium to Timothy Hickev, of Dorchester . . $3.00 7th do. Denis Doodj, of Dorchester . . 2.00 8th do. John Gorrj, of Dorchester . . .1.00 In behalf of the Committee, SAM'L DOWNER, Jr., 1 ; GEO. M. SMITH, [Committee. SAM'L ELLIS, Bedliam, Sept. 28, 1853. -^^ — REPORT ON FAT CATTLE. We the undersigned, Committee on Fat Cattle, report. That one Ox entered by Luther Spear, of Dorchester, was the only one entered for premium, — that we do not consider said Ox worthy of the first premium, — and, therefore, award to said Luther Spear the second Premium of Five dollars. ELIJAH THAYER, WM. FAIRBANKS. Bedhmn, Sept. 28, 1853. REPORT ON BULLS. The Committee on Bulls report, that the whole number on ex- hibition was ten. After a careful examination of their merits, and being governed by the importance of encouraging the use, only, of such animals as arc known in pedigree, and of pure blood, the Com- mittee make the following awards : — Class Devon. — For the best full blood, the first premium to Aaron Davis Weld, of West Roxbury, $5.00 Do. do. For the second best, the second premium to John S. Eldridge, of Canton, . . $3.00 Class Ayhshire. — For the best full blood, the first pre- mium to Lemuel Billings, Quincy, . $5.00 No second premium awarded. 75 Class Alderney. — For the best full blood, the ifirst pre- mium to Lyman Khisley, of Canton, . $5.00 No second premium awarded. The Committee also recommend Diplomas for the following Grade Animals, or those whose pedigree could not be ascertained : — To Albert Southworth, of Stoughton, for his large Devon Bull, three years old, weighing 1520 lbs. To the same gentleman, for his Grade, (Devon and Native.) To S. Palmer, of Milton, for his fine Grade Calf, (Durham and Devon.) To Jesse Farrington, of Dedham, for his Grade, (three-fourths Durham and one-fourth Native.) In conclusion, the Chairman of the Committee submits the following remarks : — When we consider the immense loss which is annually sustained by the breeding and rearing of cattle of an ordinary character, we are impelled to urge upon the attention of our brother farmers, the absolute importance of improving their stock, by the introduction of 2^^'-'''^ blood animals, and of such o)il^ as are best adapted to the purjjoscs for which they are wanted. Much mismanagement and misunderstanding have hitherto existed in regard to this most necessary department of husbandry. Hence the bad results which have accrued from the indiscriii)inate crossing of what are termed native stock with blood or grade animals, without regard to their distinctive qualities. For iiistauce, to cross a common cow with the Ayrshire bull — her progeny with a Durham — this with a Hereford — and again, perhaps, with a compound of^all these bloods — would be a retrograde movement, rather than any definite approach towards the object to be attained. It may then be considered as one of the most important elements of success, to breed from pure blood animals. Appropriate treat- ment and proper food are of great consequence ; but it is not so much to these that we are indebted, as to the peculiar tendencies of the race from which we desire to raise stock. The desideratum which we should seek to obtain, is the breed which possesses certain prop- erties, whether for the dairy, the stall, or the yoke. To '•'breed directly in the line,'" is now admitted to be the best, if not the only safe method for the improvement and perpetuation of 76 the blood ; and in all cases from pure blood on one side, and if pos- sible from the male. The best animals of the class desired should be selected, and, following down in a direct line, the purity of the offspring should be maintained, only changing occasionally from one family (not breed) to another, to preserve vigor of constitution. The Chairman of the Committee, having expressed the above views, would recommend to the farmers of Norfolk County to dis- pense, as far as practicable, with bulls of a nondescript character, and to avail themselves of such as are known to be oi pure blood, — confining themselves to the class which may be best adapted to their own locality or purpose. Maturity and good constitution should be sought for in the dam, in which case, although the male be young, if healthy and vigorous, her progeny will be more affected with the general character of the breed to which he belongs, than with his size or age. MARSHALL P. WILDER, Ohairman. REPORT ON COWS. The Committee on Milch Cows report, That of this class the num- ber entered for premium was fifteen. The unfavorable state of the -weather prevented sending from a distance much valuable stock, which would otherwise have increased very much the interest felt in this — one of the most important departments of our exhibition. The entries were as follows, viz. : — By S. J. Capen, Dorchester, 2 Durhams. " " " 1 one-half do., and one-half Ayrshire. " " " 1 Ayrshire. " Francis Guild, Dedham, 1 Native. " J. W. Clark, " 1 do., Cow and Calf, (4 months 19 days old.) " S. R. Spaulding, W. Roxbury, 1 Alderney. " Lyman Kinsley, Canton, 1 do. " Wm. T. G. Morton, W. Needham, 1 Durham. " " " 1 one-half Devon and one-half Native. " M. P. Wilder, Dorchester, 1 Native. 77 By M. P. Wilder, Dorchester, 1 three-fourths Durham. " J. J. Di\well, W. Roxbury, 1 Aldernej. " A.D.Weld, " 1 one-half Durham one-half Ayrshire. " Lemuel Billings, Quincy, 1 Durham. The premiums for Cows in milk, which were accompanied witli written certificates of their yield, were awarded as follows, viz. : — S. J. Capen, Dorchester, first premium, for his one-half Ayrshire and one- half Durham Cow, . . . $10.00 Francis Guild, Dedham, second premium, for his Native, 8.00 J. J. Dixwell, W. Roxbury, third do. do. Alderney, (5.00 J. W. Clark, Dedham, fourth do. do. Native, 4.00 A gratuity is recommended of $3 to M. P. Wilder, for his Native Cow "Brindle," which was excluded from the Society's premium, having taken the first last year. Your Committee would also recommend a gratuity of $3 to S. R. Spaulding, of West Roxbury, for his very beautiful Jersey Cow, which, in the absence of a written certificate, was not entitled to any premium. Premiums on Cows, not less than three years old, of the following breeds : — Jersey — first premium to J. J. Dixwell, W. Roxbury, . $5.00 " second " " Lyman Kinsley, Canton, . 3.00 Ayrshire — first " none entitled. " second " to S. J. Capen, Dorchester, . 3.00 Durham — first " " Lemuel Billings, Quincy, . 6.00 " second " " S. J. Capen, Dorchester, . 3.00 Grade— first " " S. J. Capen, " . 5.00 " second " " Wm. T. G. Morton, W. Needham, 3.00 Native — first " " Francis Guild, Dedham, . 5.00 second " " J. W. Clark, " . 3.00 Gratuities for stock, under this head, are recommended as follows: To A. D. Weld, W. Roxbury, for his Cow "Beauty," . $3.00 " M. P. Wilder, Dorchester, " " Grade Cow, . . 2.00 Special notice is taken in this connection of a very superior full blood Durham, owned by Dr. Wm. T. G. Morton, of Needham, not having been in his possession long enough to entitle him to a premium. Dr. Morton's statement is as follows : — " The Durham 7 78 Cow Is from the Stickney importation ; weighs 1500 lbs. ; six years old ; calved in April, 1852 ; gave, through the month of May, 1852, twenty-eight quarts of milk daily — through the month of August, 1852, twenty-five quarts daily, and drove one and a quarter miles to an ordinary pasture ; had no grain whatever." A gratuity of $3 is recommended to Dr. Morton, for his full blood Durham. The following are the copies of certificates in relation to the yield of milk and butter, to which premiums are awarded : — S. J. CAPEN'S CERTIFICATE. The Cow offered for premium is one-half Ayrshire and one-half Durham ; eight years old. She calved May 2d, 1853 ; the calf was killed when three days old. From June 1st to June 10th she averaged 23 quarts of milk per day, weighing 53 lbs. From Sept. 1st to the 10th, she averaged 17 quarts per day, weighing 41 lbs. She was fed on grass and corn fodder. Dorchester, Sept. 27, 1853. FRANCIS GUILD'S CERTIFICATE. Native Cow, seven years old. From the 10th to the 20th of June she gave 327 1-4 lbs. of milk, which made 19 lbs. of butter. From the 10th to the 20th of September she gave 250 lbs. of milk, which made 16 lbs. of butter. She calved March 23d ; her feed, grass — not good feed — and fed some with green corn in August and Septem- ber ; one quart of meal and one quart of shorts each day. Dedham, Sept. 27, 1853. J. J. DIXWELL'S CERTIFICATE. I send my Jersey Cow for exhibition. As I keep her for family use, I have very little record of her yield. Her excellence is in the quality, not the quantity, for she is not a large milker. During the last week in May, and the first week in June, her milk was set aside ■for butter, with this result: — 1st week, 76 3-4 quarts of milk, from which was made 12 lbs. butter. 2d " 72 1-2 " " " " 13 1-2 lbs. " 79 In addition to pasturage, she was fed vdtli two quarts of shorts — one of Indian meal and one of oil meal — each day. She calved the 5th of March. Now she gives but five or six quarts per day. On several trials, her milk has produced a pound of butter from a frac- tion under 5 1-2 quarts of milk. West Roxhmj, 21th Sept., 1853. J. W. CLARK'S CERTIFICATE. Native Cow, six years old. Calved May 7, 1853. For the first three weeks she averaged 18 quarts of milk per day. The first week in June, we used 69 quarts of milk, 3 quarts of cream, and made from the remainder 8 lbs. of butter. The second week, used 66 quarts of milk, 6 quarts of cream, and made 6 1-2 lbs. butter. We measured the milk but once this month, (September,) she gave 15 quarts per day. Feed, 3 to 5 quarts shorts per day, and what grass she wanted. The Committee, before closing their Report, will venture some suggestions upon the general management of Milch Cows. The principal and most important points are these : The selection of stock ; their general care and treatment ; a judicious and well regulated method of feeding. In relation to the first of these, but little need be said by the Committee, the selection being a matter depending mainly upon the taste and judgment of those interested ; and of which there is almost as great a difference as there are owners. But when it is considered that the cost of keeping a good cow is but very little, if any, more than that of a poor or ordinary one, it will be conceded that this is a matter of great importance to the farmer. But with ever so good a selection, the result, so far as profit is concerned, will be anything but desirable, unless a faithful and methodical plan, in regard to care and keeping, is most strictly adhered to. For it is believed that a stock of cows, however good, may, by only a common or ordinary mode of feeding and treatment, be reduced in their pro- duct, so as to make but poor returns for what is expended upon them ; while, on the other hand, a common or ordinary stock only, with judicious care and feeding, may be made to increase largely in their yield, and pay a remunerating profit to the farmer. 80 It is difficult to attach too much importance to the second point proposed, viz., that of care and treatment. It is beUeved to be no uncommon thing among our farmers, in the busy season of the year in particular, to postpone the " milking time " till almost night, so that the men having this duty in charge may be enabled to do their day's work in the field, and then, as a matter of course, milk the cows. Now all hands must take part in this, so as to despatch as rapidly as possible this closing job of the day. And who doubts that this, done after a bard day's woi'k in the heat of summer, with ex- hausted body, coupled with the certainty of a late supper ; with the hurried manner of driving the cows from pasture, the impatience of the men, and consequent harsh treatment of the cattle, the udder but two-thirds emptied of its contents, and in fact the whole work, in some way or other, imperfectly done, — who doubts that it is a mis- take in management that must prove decidedly prejudicial in its results? A stock of cows, on the other hand, should be tended by the same help daily — and, when it can be done by one man, never allow more to take a part in it — and tended in such a way that a feeling of perfect confidence and affection will be cultivated by them for their keeper, which tender and gentle treatment will be sure to beget. As to the manner of feeding, and particularly in the winter, it is believed that much harm results, either from over or under feeding, and feeding at irregular and improper times. A stocV of cows should be fed but three times in the twenty-four hours, and at just the same hour each feed. And, instead of crowding before them as much as they can comfortably dispose of, or more, feed a little sparingly, so that the crib will be entirely emptied within the hour ; and, if by chance a little is left, be sure and have it removed, and the crib swept entirely clean. Care should always be taken to furnish an ample supply of pure water, say, at least, three times each day, the last watering to be as late as eight o'clock in the evening, at which time they will partake more freely than at any other. It is also advised, that provision be made for watering in the barn, instead of, at any time in the winter, being obliged to have them exposed to the storms and cold without. It is believed, that by furnishing a supply of water thus to a stock of cows in milk, the quantity, by this alone, will be increased from 15 to 20 per cent, above what it would be by the usual mode of treatment. 81 One other important point to notice, is tlie necessity of keeping cattle in a warm but well-ventilated barn. Your Committee are satisfied, by their own observation and experience, that from Decem- ber to April there is great gain, both in yield of milk and flesh, by keeping a stock of milch cows tied up in the barn at least five days in seven, and that one hour of out-door exercise, in each of the two days, is all that should be allowed them. So that it may be safely stated, allowing all other things to be equal, that a careful observ- ance of these two latter points alone, viz., a good supply of water in the barn, ai:d warm and nearly equal temperature, will add, at least, one quarter to the product. Dry bedding, day and night, with care- ful carding, should not be omitted. It is believed that the average yield of milk throughout the State will not exceed four quarts per day for each cow, through the year. Now, if this opinion is correct, it is, to say the least, discreditable and inexcusable ; for it is unquestionably true, that the very same stock may be made to yield six quarts, and that, too, without any additional consumption or cost of feed, but simply by judicious and careful treatment. Your Committee, in conclusion, would recommend that a premium of $25 be offered for the greatest yield of milk per day, through the year, from ten cows, of not less than eight quarts ; of $15, from six cows; and $10, from not less than four cows. Statements to be made by the applicants of breed, mode and cost of keeping. For the Committee, JNO. H. ROBINSON, Chairman. REPORT ON HEIFERS. Your Committee have attended to the duty assigned them, and respectfully report as follows, viz. : — Jersey. — No premiums awarded. Ayrshire. — To Samuel J. Capen, of Dorchester, first premium of ....... . $3.00 Second premium not awarded. 82 Devon. — To John S. Eldridge, of Canton, first premium of $3.00 Also, to the same gentleman, the second premium of . 2.00 Durham. — To James Dorr, of Dorchester, first premium of 3.00 The second premium is not awarded. Your Committee are of opinion that entries were made of Heifers of an age which, bj the rules of the Society, were placed beyond their control. Grade. — To Solomon Flagg, of West Needham, the first premium of ....... . 3.00 To David Chase, of Dedhara, second premium of . . 2.00 Native. — To Alfred R. Ellis, of Walpole, first premium of 3.00 To Israel Hunting, of Needham, second premium of . 2.00 Heifers in Milk. — To Aaron D. Weld, of West Rox- bury, first premium of 6.00 To Samuel J. Capen, of Dorcliester, second premium of 5.00 To Aaron D. Weld, of West Roxbury, third premium of 4.00 Best Heifer under one year old. — To John R. Dow, of Milton, first premium of .... . 3.00 To William Pierce, of East Needham, second premium of 2.00 To Joseph Fisher & Son, of West Dedham, third pre- mium of 1.00 Your Committee would respectfully recommend that gratuities be given to the following gentlemen having stock possessing excellent qualities : — To J. J. Dixwell, of W. Roxbury, for his Alderney Heifer, $2.00 To Joseph Fisher & Son, of West Dedham, one-half Native one-half Devon, 17 months old, .... 2.00 To Edward R. Pope, of Quincy, one-half Native one-half Devon, 7 months 27 days, 1.00 To John Fussell, of Roxbury, one-half Ayrshire one-half Native, 16 1-2 months old, 2.00 To Aaron D. Weld, of West Roxbury, one-sixteenth cream pot, one-sixteenth Durham, fourteen-sixteenths Devon, six months old, 2.00 To Seth Blake, of Dover, one-half Durham one-half Native, four months old, ....... 1.00 To Benjamin H. Tubbs, of West Dedham, Native, four months old, 1.00 CALVIN RICHARDS, Chairman. 83 REPORT ON WORKING OXEN, Your Committee would report, There were but four entries made for trial, and they have awarded premiums as follows : — To Timothy Tucker, of Milton, Oxen 6 years old, the first premium, $8.00 To Aaron D. Weld, of W. Roxbury, Oxen 5 years old, the second premium, 6.00 To B. V. French, of Braintree, Oxen 7 years old, the third premium, 5.00 The trial was performed by drawing a cart, loaded with two tons of stone, from the bottom of a long hill to the top, and back. Each team trying their skill and strength in backing the same load up hill, two or more times, while descending at difficult points. The same cart and load were used by each team. Your Committee would add, that the work was quite satisfactorily performed by each of the com- petitors, Mr. Tucker's oxen doing it with the most ease to both themselves and their driver. In the opinion of your Committee, with some of the drivers, there was quite too free use made of the whip and voice : the lash leaving marks, too true a proof of the strength of the arm that wielded it. Your Committee would speak with pleasure of three yokes of oxen, exhibited by A. D. Weld, as being worthy of note ; their docility and training, as exhibited, were well worth the attention of farmers. They were entered for pre- mium ; but, as none was offered except on each yoke separately, your Committee had not the power to award any to them, though for beauty of shape, training, and matching in color, it is doubted whether they could be excelled in the County. We regret that a cold easterly storm prevented the appearance of so large a number of competitors as usual ; and also, that, probably for the same reason, there were no town teams present. With the remark, that probably no animal on the farm repays more fully kind care and treatment from its owner and driver, than the ox, we respectfully submit this our Report to the Society. Yours, ROYAL W. TURNER, Chairman. 84 REPORT ON STEERS. The Committee on Steers have attended to the duty assigned them, and offer the following Report : — They were not embarrassed in determining the comparative claims to first or second premium, and they feel confident that they have given satisfaction in their awards to every expectant of a premium. For the pair of twin steers, three years old, half Durham and half Native, owned by Enslin and Ayers, of West Roxbury, the Com- mittee award the first premium of Five dollars. They regret that they could not award the second premium, but they feel justified by the fact, that only one pair of steers, three years old, was exhibited. There was another pair of steers, and only one, twins, fourteen months old, too young to be entitled to a premium, by the rule, owned by James W. Daniels, of Medway, and for these the Com- mittee recommend a gratuity of Two dollars. For the Committee, D. KIMBALL. REPORT ON HORSES. The Committee on Horses beg leave respectfully to report — That there were no matched Horses offered for exhibition. That they award the first premium of $3 to Henry S. Clarke, of Walpole, for the best single carriage Horse. For the best Stallion, to Albert R. Mathes, of Roxbury, the first premium of $10. The Committee recommend that the Society's Diploma be given to Messrs. Payne & Mathes, of Roxbury, for a grey Stallion, said horse not coming under the rules entitled to a premium. The Committee recommend that a gratuity of ^o be given to John J. Carr, of Quincy, for a superior sorrel Mare, four years old, the rules excluding her from a premium. 85 The Committee award to Joseph II. Billings, of West Roxbury, the first premium of $5, for the best three years old Colt. The Committee award to S. S. Whitney, of Dedham, the first premium of $3, for the best two years old Colt. The Committee award to B. W. Balch, of Dedham, for the best yearling Colt, the first premium of $2. The Committee, laboring under considerable embarrassment in deciding on the yearling Colts, from the superiority of two exhibited, award a gratuity of $2 to Joseph 11. Billings, of West Roxbury, for his yearling Colt. The Committee award to Samuel Cook, of Milton, the first pre- mium of $7, for the best breeding Mare and Colt. The Committee award to Benjamin Neal, of Walpole, the second premium of $5, for the second best breeding Mare and Colt. The Committee award to Joseph H. Billings, of West Roxbury, a gratuity of $2, for a very superior breed Mare and Colt. The Committee recommend that the Society's Diplomas be given to S. S. Whitney, of Dedham, for his bay Mare, 27 years old, with Colt by her side ; and to John Fussell, of Roxbury, for his bay jNIare, 18 years old, with Colt by her side. The Committee award to Benj. V. French, of Braintree, the first premium of $6, for the best Farm Horse. The Committee award to Elijah Tucker, of Milton, a gratuity of $5, for a sorrel Horse exhibited by him, at the very advanced age of 31 years, and owned by him 22 years, thus demonstrating that good care and kindness to this noble animal do not lose their reward. In behalf of the Committee, JOS. L. BRIGHAM. 86 REPOllT ON SAVINE. The number of contributors under this head were 64, and the contributions consisted of 34 boars, 27 breeding sows, 173 pigs and 15 fat hogs and pigs, nearly all of which were of the Suffolk breed, or the Suffolk largely predominating in the blood. W. T. G. Morton, of West Needham, exhibited a Suffolk boar fifteen months old, having his points well developed, and has proved himself a good stock getter, having served 40 sows, averaging over 10 pigs each. Several of the litters were on the ground attesting a good dissemination of the sire's points. Dr. Morton also contributed a fine Suffolk sow, with a litter of pigs, showing to a decided advantage over the one-half and seven-eighths blooded stock from the yard of the same contributor. Richard Richardson, of Medway, exhibited a Suffolk boar one year old, which was the admiration of all the visitors, being at fault in no desirable point, and not second to any other on the ground. But on account of his age no evidence could be handed in of his efficiency. The Committee were obliged to put him down as low as the second premium ; another year, and he may prove a troublesome competitor for the honors of the Society's highest award. Henry L. Howe, of Grantville, offered a Suffolk boar, one year old, which is a credit to the blooded stock ; and though in the highest possible condition, his owner assured the committee, in writing, that he was a certain stock getter. S. J. Capen, of Dorchester, presented a pair of imported Suffolk pigs, eight months old, of good promise. The Committee believed they would not come within the rules of the Society entitling them to a premium, since, if they were only eight months old, they must have been shipped from England quite young, or the vessel must have had a remarkably short passage to have allowed a possession of six months. Henry L. Stone, of Grantville, contributed a breeding sow and pigs, and also a boar of the Suffolk breed. Mr. Stone's stock bespoke care and attention. 87 Abner and Henry Aldeu showed Suffolks of excellent promise, of all ages, from four months up to two years, — a part being from the stock imported by Mr. Stickney, and a part from the stock imported by jMr. Motley. George Houghton, of Neponset, contributed a very handsome young Suffolk boar, which may prove of essential service, in that vicinity, as a good stock getter. Joseph Robinson, of Neponset, offered some handsome Suffolk pigs ten weeks old, probably from the same branch of stock as the last named, that neighborhood having sent out some of the choicest of this desirable breed. Calvin Dean, of Canton, exhibited a very large boar of three years, being the same which elicited so much attention at the Society's exhibition, 1852. He partakes largely of the Suffolk blood, and as a stock getter, his reputation in his neighborhood stands A 1. John Fussell, of Jamaica Plain, entered a large number of Suffolks, Chinas, and the " Improved Essex." Probably no pig on the ground received more praise, and deservedly too, than did his young Essex boar. Any owner might well be proud of so fine an animal coming forward to do credit to this but recently imported breed. There were but two other contributors under the head of " Improved Essex," viz., B. V. French, of Braintree, and Eben Wight, of Dedham ; all were received from L. G. Morris, of Mount Fordham, New York. The Committee believe that in granting a diploma for the " Im- proved Essex" boar, the Society stands accredited as well as the owner of the animal, when by this act they give a standing proof of their estimation, and recommend his service for the improvement of this branch of stock. Aaron D. Weld, of West Roxbury, exhibited an imported China sow, with her Utter of thirteen pigs, (half Suffolk,) and both mother and pigs were good evidence that the owner's crib is " close to hand." Though the China enters largely into all the improved breeds of swine, and as a cross are desirable, yet when bred pure they lack in essential points. As breeders, they are certainly very prolific. The breeding sow from M. P. Wilder was a large and fine specimen of a cross between the Suffolk and Middlesex ; and with her litter of ten pigs attracted much attention. The " Town of Needham " sent five pigs, three-fourths Suffolk, 88 about five months old. And if these are to be taken as evidence of the " town's keep," one might well consider it the best aldermanic habitation in the count/. Henry Goulding, of Dover, also offered, under the head of weaned pigs, five fifteen-sixteenths Suffolk pigs of five months. They were large of their age, and showed great aptitude to fatten, even on a short allowance. Hiram W. Jones, of Dover, exhibited — not offered for premium — six pigs, one-half Suffolk, which looked as happy as do the pigs " lying in the very best of straw." Eben Wight, of Dedham, filled several pens with Suffolk sows. Im- proved Essex sows, and their progeny, but consequent on his being of the Committee, they could only be offered for exhibition. Probably no County in the State can show so good a stock of swine as can the County of Norfolk, diligent care having been taken in the selection and importation of the choicest breeds in vogue. Although the number shown was sufficient to fill nearly all the pens, and the swine were in every instance excellent, still the amount intended to have been shown would have trebled those on the grounds had the weather proved propitious. The Committee learned from many individuals known to be good breeders of the " Improved Suf- folk," that the pigs were boxed to be forwarded, but detained over till the second day, hoping for more favorable weather. As previously stated, nearly all the swine were of the " Improved Suffjlk," or that stock largely crossed with the Middlesex or the Mackay. In order, therefore, more fully to illustrate the value of such breeds or varieties as are generally brought to your grounds, they give a lengthy extract from the admirable Paper on Swine, drawn up by San ford Howard, Esq., a writer whose opinion on stock is not second to that of any other writer. " The following is a brief notice of som.e of the breeds of domestic swine. It is only a few years since it was very common to hear an expression signifying that the breed of a hog is in the food he gets. This notion has been to a great extent eradicated, but it is not yet without advocates. There are still some who do not believe there is anything in the breed, because they ' cannot see how it is ; ' but that is no reason for denying the fact. They cannot see how it is that in the seeds of a fruit, (as of the pear, for instance,) all of which 89 arc to outward appearances just alike, and probably would appear so by the nicest chemical test — some will produce fruit the most delicious and melting, and others, with precisely the same soil and culture, that which is the most crabbed and austere. They cannot see how it is that the bear should line and cover his carcass with fat to an amount nearly equal to half his whole weight, and which sup- plies his lamp of life for five months in the year, while the wolf and the fox remain gaunt and lean. They cannot see how it is that the same kind of food, when eaten by the ox, the sheep, the turkey, or the common fowl, produces meat, which, to human taste, is of very different qualities. " All these effects are obvious ; yet we cannot see their causes, nor fully understand them. All we can say is, they result from the varied nature of things. They show, however, that there is in the original germ of plants and animals, a principle which produces certain peculiarities greatly affecting their value for the purposes of man. This principle is not only manifested in the characteristics of different species, but exists more or less in varieties of the same species. We see its effects in the different kinds of wheat, and in other species of grain — in varieties of peas, beans, apples, potatoes, &c., — and in the peculiarities of the different varieties of the dog, the sheep, the hog, and other domestic animals. It is man's business to study these peculiarities, and secure and apply them in those ways •which will render them most subservient to his wants. " In regard to swine, it is to be regretted that the difference in the various breeds has not been demonstrated by exact experiments. We are, however, in possession of certain facts of great importance in the case. For instance, many farmers have found that on the same amount and kind of food, some hogs Avill gain much faster than others ; that some will become fiit on uncooked vegetable food, as raw apples, while others require grain or meal to bring them to a slaughtering condition ; that some will keep in good order, and will thrive on clover or grass only, while others can scarcely live on such fare ; that in some, the tendency to fatten is so great, that it is necessary to keep them on very low diet to insure their breeding. " There is not only a difference in the amount of meat which dif- ferent swine are capable of acquiring from an equal amount of food, but there is a great difference in the quality of the meat. Some persons, doubting this, may say, ' pork is pork ; ' so ' beef is beef;' 90 but is there not a great difference in the texture and flavor of beef from cattle of different breeds ? This difference is so well under- stood in England, that the prices of beef are to a considerable extent regulated by the breed — the AYest-Highlanders and Gallo- ways taking the first rank, then the Herefords and Devons, and last, the Shorthorns. A similar scale of prices regulates the market in reference to mutton from various breeds of sheep. The difference in the meat of swine is not less striking. Some have a thick skin, with flesh of an open, coarse texture, and unpleasant flavor ; others a thin skin, with fine-grained, well-flavored flesh. Some convert their food almost wholly into fat, while in others it enters chiefly into the composition of muscle. In some, the fat is accumulated chiefly on the belly, and is of a soft, oily nature ; in others, it is laid more on the back, and is comparatively firm and hard. " Of course, the breed should be chosen with reference to the pur- poses in view. If lard-oil is the principal object, the animal which will give the greatest quantity of soft fat for the food consumed will be most profitable. For barrelling, ' clear pork ' is the main object; and the animal which will give the greatest quantity of solid fat on the back and sides, is preferable. This is the description of pork which is chiefly consumed in the Eastern States and in the fisheries. In the Southern and Western States, pork is used chiefly in the form of ' bacon ' — the whole of the meat is ' dry-cured ' and smoked. Where this is the object, the clear fat which is so much prized in other cases, is not desirable ; but a carcass which gives a considerable proportion of lean with the fat is much better. " The swine of the United States have been derived chiefly from Great Britain, though occasional importations have been made from other countries. The British stock of the present day consists of various mixtures of the aboriginal race of that island with various Asiatic stocks — mostly Chinese and Siamese. Youatt, in his treatise, published in 184G, observed that the old breeds were ' rapidly losing all traces of individuality under the various systems of crossing to which they are subjected.' The old stock, which, ' with trifling degrees of difference,' it is said, ' Avas spread over the greater part of England,' is described by Martin as ' large, coarse, unthrifty, with a long broad snout, large flapping ears, low in the shoulders, long in the back, flat-sided, long in the limbs, and large-boned, with a thick hide covered with coarse bristles. They were enormous feeders but 91 slow fatteners ; consuming more food than was repaid by their flesh.' But he observes that the ' general system of crossing now pursued tends to the establishment of a uniform race throughout every country ; that is, a race presenting the same outstanding characteristics.' " Before proceeding to notice the various breeds of swine, it may be observed that the general wants of the community in relation to pork, can be best supplied by two descriptions or classes of hogs ; one for supplying the market with meat to be eaten fresh, and for baconing, as above-mentioned, and the other for making fat pork for barrelling, &c. This classification will therefore be adopted in the remarks which follow. Those breeds whose special characteristic is the formation of fat, will be first considered. And, as having been the principal stock in changing the character of the Old English, we will notice first of all, " Tlie Chinese. — There are doubtless various breeds of swine in the ' Celestial Empire.' Specimens brought from that country frequently present so marked a contrast of character that no one would hesitate to pronounce them of difl"erent breeds. They vary in size and in color, ranging from white to black. Some of the early importations made to England, and thence to this country, were black ; and the idea appears to have been held that this was the invariable color of Chinese swine. Hence CuUey, who wrote in the year 1784, speaks of them as ' the Chinese or black breed.' Youatt makes two distinct varieties of the Chinese, the ' white ' and the ' black.' * The race, however, in all its varieties, possesses the common characteristic of fattening easily. They are small-boned, and acquire great weights in proportion to the bone and offal. Those brought from their native country seldom have that perfection of symmetry which is most esteemed in animals of this kind, and which the cross-bred descendants soon acquire by skilful breeding-. The pure Chinese fatten too much on the belly and too little on the back, and the fat is inclined to be soft and oily. Youatt says, ' they * It may not generally be known that the progeny of the white hogs trans- ported from Europe and the United States into the tropical regions of Africa and America are usually black, and continue of that color through successive gen- erations. How far this will explain the differences in the color of the Chinese hogs, a series of physiological inquiries can only determine. 92 do not make good bacon, and are often too fat and oilj to be gener- ally esteemed as pork.' The females are sometimes singularly prolific. The improvement which has been effected by means of the Chinese race, has resulted in the first place from lessening the bone and increasing the aptitude to fatten in the stocks with which they have been crossed, and afterwards selecting as a breeding stock such as possessed the requisite points as to symmetry. IMPROVED SUFFOLK, " This breed is one of the most highly esteemed and valuable in the world. Its origin, according to Youatt and INIartin, is the old Suffolk crossed with the Berkshire and Chinese. Youatt says, ' those arising from the Berkshire and Suffolk are not so well shaped as those arising from the Chinese and Suffolk ; being coarser, longer- legged, and more prominent about the hips.' He concludes : ' On the whole, there are but few better breeds in the kingdom than the Improved Suffolk.' He states that the greater part of the pigs at Prince Albert's farm, near Windsor, are of this breed. Martin says, ' this breed stands first,' and he describes the animals as ' rather small, but compact, short-legged, and small-headed ; the body is round, and they fatten readily.' Rham, in his ' Dictionary of the 93 Farm,' says, ' Suffolk pigs are perhaps, on the whole, the most popular of any breed in England.' " For the introduction of the Improved Suffolk pigs into this country, we are indebted to the late William Stickney, of Boston. lie made several importations, comprising some of the best specimens of the breed to be had in England, from 1842 to 1848. He also imported specimens of the Middlesex and of the White Essex breeds. Since these importations, there have been others^, and the stock is now bred to a considerable extent in New England, and is rapidly spreading over the country. " The Suffolks, as before stated, are not large hogs, but attain maturity at an early age, and may be always in condition to kill from the time they are a month old. They readily weigh from 200 to 300 pounds at six to ten months old, and a proportionate weight at twelve months. The pork is so much esteemed, that it generally commands from a cent to two cents a pound, extra, in Boston Market. '•'•The 3Iiddlesex. — This appears to be a popular breed in parts of England, and has sometimes carried prizes at the shows of the Smith- field Club. It has been previously stated that Mr. Stickney imported Middlesex pigs into this country. He received a lot in 1844, and another lot in 1848, The breed is evidently derived from a large infusion of the Chinese with some larger stock. Our remarks refer to those introduced here. The color is usually white. The size of the animals is perhaps somewhat larger than the Suffolk, but the carcass is less symmetrical ; the frame is more loose, the legs less straight, the knees apt to be turned in, the belly is more hanging, and the general appearance indicating a softer texture of flesh. They fatten easily. They have often been crossed with the Suffolk, but with no advantage to the latter, so f\ir as the writer has seen. The late Mr. Stickney continued the stock unmixed for several years ; but it is not known to be so bred by any one in this country at the present time. " TTie Mackay Breed, formerly well known in Massachusetts, was originated by the late Captain John Mackay, of Boston. He had a farm at Weston, in Middlesex county, on which he collected many hogs which he procured in various parts of the world, whither he was led in his commercial intercourse. These various kinds were bred together, and the result was the production of a stock to which his name was applied. The writer of this article purchased pigs of 8 94 Captain Mackay at various times — first in 1830. It can hardly be said that his stock ever acquired a sufficiently uniform character to justify its being called a distinct breed. Their greatly diverse origin was always more or less manifest. They were, however, very easily fattened and highly profitable. Some inclined to grow to a large size, yet were always fat, from three weeks old, if tolerably cared for ; and at eighteen months old sometimes weighed 600 pounds each, and upwards. In the latter part of his breeding, Captain Mackay gave his attention more to the propagation of this larger stock. In 1834, he sold all his swine to Colonel Jaques, of the Ten-Uills Farm, ayIio now has all of this valuable stock within the writer's knowledge. Various circumstances, which it is unnecessary to mention here, have conspired to nearly annihilate them. Colonel Jaques has made extensive inquiries, but can hear of none except those in his own hands. " The foregoing list comprises most of the breeds which have been regarded as best adapted to the production of clear pork.' Other breeds, which form a greater proportion of lean properly combined with fat, may be more profitable for particular situations. In cities and large towns a great quantity of pork is consumed in a fresh state. To be best adapted to this purpose, swine should be small- boned, only moderately fat, but plump and meaty, weighing when dressed from forty to a hundred pounds — the flesh fine-grained, and of the best quality as to flavor. Under this class, and as adapted to baconing, as before described, may be enumerated the following : — "27ie Neai)olitan Breed. — Martin, speaking of the excellence of Italian swine, observes : ' The ancient Romans made the art of breeding, rearing and fattening pigs a study, and elevated, so to speak, various strains to the highest perfection. We cannot doubt that from those improved races of antiquity the present pigs of Italy have descended. It is not, we think, overstraining the mark, to regard the excellent breeds of pigs in Italy as the descendants of a long line of ancestry — of breeds established before Rome fell.* The Neapolitan is the most celebrated Italian breed, and has been the source from whence some of the most esteemed English breeds have been in part derived. They have also been introduced into the United States, but did not prove sufficiently hardy for ordinary management. Their flesh is of very superior quality. Martin's description of the breed is as follows : — ' The Neapolitan pig is 95 small, black, almost destitute of bristles, and remarkable for aptitude to fatten ; it is short in the snout, small in the bone, with sharp erect ears ; but it is by no means hardy, at least in our country, and if the sows happen to have litters in winter, it will be difficult, should the weather be severe, to save the young pigs from dying. But as a cross with some of our breeds, as the Berkshire, the JSTeapolitan race is most valuable. The cross-breed exhibits improvement in form without too great delicacy of constitution ; they have a remarkable tendency to fatten, and though larger and stronger than the Neapol- itan, display all their good qualities. The Essex breed is much indebted for its excellencies to the Neapolitan intermixture.' IMPROVED ESSEX. " This is one of the most valuable breeds now known. Its estab- lishment is generally credited to the late Lord Western. It has of later years been extensively known in the hands of W. Fisher Ilobbs, of Mark's Hall, Essex. It has, perhaps, carried more prizes at the shows of the Smithfield Club within the last ten years, than any other breed. As above mentioned, it was derived from a cross with the Neapolitan, and inherits the color of that 96 race,* with more size, finer sj^mmetry, and much better constitution. Stephens, author of the ' Book of the Farm,' and the ' Farmer's Guide,' says : ' As to the breed which shows the greatest disposition to fatten, together with a due proportion of lean, I never saw one equal to that which was originated by Lord Western, in Essex. They were exceedingly gentle, indisposed to travel far, not very prolific, however, but could attain, if kept on, to a great weight, and so com- pact in form and small of bone and offal, that they invariably yielded a greater weight of pork than was judged of before being slaughtered. The oifal was small, and more delicious ham was never cured than they afforded.' Martin says, ' these animals fatten quickly, grow rapidly, and yield very superior meat. The hogs when fattened will sometimes weigh 26 or 28 stones, (14 lbs.,) often 18 or 20,' equal to 252 to 392 pounds. " Colonel Lewis G. Morris, of Fordham, Westchester county, New York, has made several importations of this breed, some specimens of which were purchased of W. Fisher Hobbs, and were of that gentleman's best stock. '■^Points of a good Hog. — The points Avhich indicate the fattening tendency in a hog, are, the head small, with short snout and dished face ; the ear small and thin ; the neck short and thick ; the chest broad and capacious ; f the ribs round ; the back straight ; the loin broad ; the rump long from hips backward ; the legs straight and tolerably small ; the skin soft and smooth, with thin, fine bristles. " It should be borne in mind, however, that all these points do not indicate an animal best adapted to every situation. The thin skin and absence of bristles, though favorable to the accumulation of fat, when the animal is well sheltered and protected, do not denote the hardiness which may be necessary under exposure. If the animal is destined to support himself in a considerable degree, under the various transitions of weather, instead of the thin hide and scanty bristles of the refined varieties, he must be clad in covering which ♦ Though the entire body of the " Improved Essex " is covered with a pigment of black, these swine dress handsome, showing as white and fair a skin as the Suffolk.— Com. t The writer is aware that Liebig and some others have held that small chests were most favorable to the fattening tendency, but common observation does not support the idea. 97 will afford the requisite protection against the elements, and the tendency to fatten must, to a certain extent, give way to a habit of activity and a tendency to muscular fibre. Even in ordinary farm- management, there may be too much regard paid to the points which denote a tendency to fat only, to the neglect of those which denote constitution, A proper balance of these must be kept constantly in view, or the stock which will be found most profitable cannot be bred." PREMIUMS AWARDED. Best Boars not under six months. — To Dr. W. T. G. Mor- ton, of West Needham, for Suffolk ; first premium, - - $6.00 To Richard Richardson, of Medway, for Suffolk, second premium, - - 5.00 H. L. Howe, Grantville, for Suffolk ; third prem'um, - - 4.00 Diplomas were awarded to John Fussell, of Roxbury, for young Essex Boar ; George Houghton, of Neponset, for Suffolk ; H. L. Stone, of Grantville, for Suffolk ; S. J. Capen, of Dorchester, for pair Snffolks, recently imported ; and Joseph Mann, Jr., of Neponset, for Suffolk. Breeding Sows. — To H. L. Stone, Grantville, for Suffolk ; second premium, ^i^.OO To Abner Alden, of Dedham, f )r Suffolk ; third premium, 4.00 Gratuities of $2 to M. P. Wilder, of Dorchester, for Essex and Suffolk cross ; and A. D. Weld, of West Roxbury, for China. Di- ploma to W. T. G. Morton, of West Needham, for Suffolk. Wf^aned Pigs. — To Town of Needham, three-fourths Suf- folk ; first premium, ... . . ^5.00 To Henry Goulding, of Dover, fifteen-sixteenths Suffolk ; sec- ond premium, - - 3.00 To Henry Woo^l, of West Needham, three-fourths Suffolk ; third premium, - - - ... . - 2.00 Diploma to Jos. Robinson, of Dorchester, for Suffolk. Fat Hogs. — To William Flagg, of West Needham, one-half Suffolk ; first premium, . . . . . 6.00 To C. C. Sewall, of Medfield, for Suff.lk ; second premium, 5.00 EBEN WIGHT, Chairman. Dedham. 98 REPORT ON POULTRY. The number of entries was 45, by 18 different persons. But two written statements were presented, and these were not very definite. There were no natives, if we except some geese and tur- keys. This shouhl not be. The conditions upon which premiums are offered should positively require statements showing the ex- penses and income, for at least twelve months previous to their being offered. Then the number of premiums should be reduced at least one-half. At the same time the amount should be no less than now offered. The premiums should be offered for the most profitable fowls, without regard to breeds. We have had experience to show that poultry and eggs can be produced at a handsome profit ; no part of the State can be more favorable for this business than Norfolk County. We have numerous breeds of fowls from which a good selection might be made ; then grain may be raised as cheap as in other counties, and the market is as convenient as we could de- sire. As population increases, so the price of eggs and poultry increases. Our towns are fast filling up with inhabitants. It is desir- able that this branch of business should keep pace with the population, as it will affect both producer and consumer favorably. Feeling that these remarks are called for, we submit them for your con- sideration. The following is the list of premiums awarded : — Nathaniel Dunbar, Canton, for White Shanghaes, . . $2.00 Charles Sampson, West Roxbury, Gray " . . 2,00 J. A. C. Butters, West Roxbury, Black " . . 2.00 Eliphalet Stone, Dedham, Bolton Grays, .... 2.00 James Calder, Dedham, Black Spanish, . . . 2.00 C. L. Copeland, Milton, Marsh and Forbes's Shanghaes, . 2.00 Daniel McDaniel, Dorchester, Buff Shanghaes, . . 2.00 George F. Richards, Dedham, Bantams, .... 2.00 J. S. Drayton, Dedham, Brama Pootras, gratuity, . 2.00 Humphrey Smith, West Roxbury, Chittagongs, . . 2.00 W. T. G. Morton, West Needham, best lot Fowls, . 4.00 C. L. Copeland, Milton, 2d best lot Fowls, . . . 3.00 E. Bird, Stoughton, 3d best lot Fowls, . . . 2.00 W. T. G. Morton, West Needham, Ducks, . . . 2.00 9D W. S. Damrcll, Dedham, Geese, .... $3.00 W. T. G. Morton, West Needham, Geese, i;ratuitj, . 2.00 Lemiiid Kingsbury, Needham, best Turkevs, . . 2.00 E. Bird, Stougliton, 2d best Turkeys, .... 2.00 ROBERT iMANSFlELD, Chairman. Dedham, Sept. 23, 1853. -^ — REPOllT ON DxVIRY. The Committee on the Dairy have attended to their duty, and report : — That for the best 40 lbs. of Butter presented, the premium of $20 is awarded to Rev. C, C. Sewall, of Medfield. For the best 20 lbs. the first premium of $10 to same. For the best Box of 12 lbs. the first premium of $G to Geo. Crosby, of Medwny. For the second, premium of $4 to J. P. Clark, of Medway. For the third, premium of $2 to , name unknown. The Committee having had much experience in butter-making, offer the following rules as the result of their experience. The newer and sweeter the cream, the sweeter and higher flavored will be the butter. The air must be fresh and pure in the room or cellar -where tho milk is set. 'J'he cream should not remain on the milk over thirty-six hours. Keep the cream in tin pails, or stone pots, into -which put a spoonfal of salt at the beginning, then stir the cream lightly each morning and evening ; this will prevent the cream from moulding or souring. Churn as often as once a week, and as much oftencr as circum- stances Avill permit. Before churning add the cream upon all the milk then in the dairy. Use nearly an ounce of salt to a pound of butter. Work the butter over twice to free it from the buttermilk an3 brine before lumping or packing. JOHN A. GOULD, Chairmaii. 100 STATEMENT OF JOHN IL ROBINSON. Gentlemen — Herewifh I send a statement of the yield of milk from six of my cows for the year beginning September 20th, 1852, ending September 20th, 1«53. I have selected from my stock such as I intended to keep the entire year; not, however, so much with reference to their milking properties at any given tune within the year, as with the view of ascertaining precisely the average yield per day, through the year, of what may be considered good, fair milkers. Two of them calved in September, 1852 ; two in December, and two in January, 1853 : so that it will be seen that four of them have been in milk only for eight or nine months in the year. The whole yield has been 16,653 gals., making an average for each cow per day of 7 qiiarts, 1 pint, 1 gill. The greatest average of any one of the six has been 9 quarts, 1 pint, per day ; and the smallest average 5 quarts, 1 pint ; all measured by the Beer Measure, about the 20th day of each month, and a memorandum made by myself of the product of each cow, separately. The milk was delivered for the Boston market at an average price of 14 cents per gal., at the barn, which would amount to $582.82, or $97.13 for each cow. The feed has been, in the winter, the best of English and salt hay (half of each), with half a bushel of brewer's grains per day a part of the time, or, instead of grains, half a peck of corn and oil meal soaked in water twelve hours before feeding, In the summer and fall, no grain, but good pasturage, with a j)lenty of green corn fodder. They have received no better attention than the balance of my stock, all having been fed with the same quantity and in the aarae way. My rule is, when feeding from the barn, to have them fed and milked about the same time each day : say hay three times, grain twice, and water three times, the last watering at 8 o'clock in the evening, which I consider very important. In winter my milch cows are kept for the most of the time in the barn, often, in very cold weather, for two weeks together. The cost of kcei)iiig, at the present high price of hay and grain, may, I think, be put down at about $2.25 per week, from November 101 to June, and the rest of the year at 50 cents ; making the whole cost for the year about $75 per head. As such a difference of opinion prevails as to the average yield of milk from a stock of cows, I have ventured to present somewhat at length the particulars herewith submitted, and if in the opinion of the Committee they are considered of any importance, they may be disposed of in such way as is judged best. Very respectfully, JouN H. Robinson. To the Committee on Dairy. Dorchester, Sept. 21st, 1853. REPORT Ox\ BEES. The Committee on Bees report, That the honors of office were more in the outward show, than the substantial fact. The Society placed no premium at their disposal, and, therefore, the provocation to competition was very small, and the labors of the Committee were not at all onerous. One hive of Bees was presented by a gentleman not residing in the County. It was the only hive. We liked it much. There is less furor for raising Bees in the County, than in tho Bees when they are raised. "We have been penetrated with the con- viction that they are a dangerous fraternity, and, in two important particulars, are obnoxious to the laws of the land. Chap. 126, sec. 45, of the Revised Statutes provides, "that who shall wilfully commit any trespass, by entering upon the garden, orchard, or other improved land of another, without permission of the owner thereof, with intent, &c., shall be punished by imprisonment in the County Jail .... thirty days, and if the oifence be committed on the Lord's day, the imprisonment, &c." Chap. 131, sec. 16, provides, " if any shall go armed with a dirk, dagger, sword, &c., &c., he may be required, &c." That portion of our fellow citizens of whom we speak are verily guilty of the violation of both these provisions. They steal remorse- lessly, and that too of the choicest, of our fruit, and particularly on 102 the Lord's day, and carry "concealed weapons," in total disregard of the proprieties of life. Now, whether our friend, Mr. Mann, the jailer, would recommend the penalty of imprisonment in the County jail, for thirty days, wo arc not prepared to answer. And however true, generally, it may be that " misery loves company," we have some doubts whether those already under Mr. Mann's care would desire such an addition. Your Committee think that the clover fields of New Hampshire present attractions worthy of the consideration of the Bee, and, therefore, respectfully suggest that inducements be offered for their emigration. A few hives in a thickly settled village will do very well ; many are an evil to fruit and fingers, against which we should sedulously guard. For the Committee, S. B. BABCOCK. Novemher 17, 1853. REPORT ON ROOTS AND VEGETABLES. The Committee on Roots and Vegetables report, That the premiums offered by the Society for the best conducted experiments in raising different Vegetables, do not seem to have attracted the notice of cul- tivators, inasmuch as, among the great variety exhibited, in one case only has any statement of the mode of culture, or quantity produced, been submitted. There was a great variety of the potato, but the scantiness of the information, as to the properties of the new varieties, both in regard to quality and quantity, prevented your Committee from awarding the premium of the Society, intended as. an encouragement to experiments in the cultivation of this invalu- able root. The same remark will apply to the whole eight premiums. There was a very handsome collection of garden vegetables, fiom various sources, and your Committee had no hesitation in awarding the Society's first premium, a silver cup, to Mr. C. L, Copeland, of Milton, for a very fine variety of vegetables. The second premium, for the same, to Mr. B. V. French, of Brain tree. 103 The premium for the best collection of potatoes, to Mr. C. C. Scuall, of Mcdfield. The premium for the best conducted experiment in raising carrots is awarded to I. H. Meservc, Brook Farm, Roxbury. The cultivation of Vegetables in our County is greatly stimulated by our proximity to the metropolis, and the large towns in its vicinity. No branch of husbandry proves so profitable as this, ■where it is con- ducted by intelligence and experience. There are many instances, in this County, of large families raised, educated, provided with patrimonies, vigorous health, and habits of industry, from the opera- tions of vegetable culture. The sales from a dozen acres of highly cultivated land, devoted to garden vegetables, will exceed the income of several large farms cultivated in the ordinary way. The market is never overstocked, and often its deficiencies arc supplied from distant States. Success in this calling depends on knowledge ; and an apprenticeship to a skilful vegetable gardener is a pursuit worthy the attention of our young men. For the Committee, JAMES M. ROBBINS. STATEMENT OF MR. MESERVE. Brook Farm, Nov. 12, 1853. To the Committee on Root Crops : Ge.vtlemex — The ground on \yhich I raised Carrots this year, and offer for a premium, measured one acre, of a light loamy soil ; I spread, last spring, about four cords of couipost cf hogs' manure and meadow muck ; ploughed it twice ; harrowed and sowed on a level surface, the 24th of May, with a seed sower ; I wee Joseph W. Clark, Dedham, M " a Marshall P. Wilder, Dorchester, gratuity, 2 Samuel J. Capen, Dorchester, 1st premium, $10 Francis Guild, Dedham, 2d " 8 J. J. Dixwell, W. Roxbury, 3d " G Joseph W. Clark, Dedham, 4lh " 4 PRODCCB OF MILK. John H. Robinson, Dorchester, 1st premium, »10 HEIFERS. ATSSHISB. Samuel J. Capen, Dorchester, 1st premium, |« DEVON. John S. Eldridge, Canton, 1st premium, f !- John S. Eldridge, Canton, 2d " 2 DCEnAM. Jiimes Dorr. Dorchester, 1st premium, ?:; ALDEUNET. J. J. Dixwell, W. Roxbury, gratuity, »2 GRADE. ■ I Solomon Flagp, Needham, 1st premium, $3 David Chase, Dedham. 2d " 2 Jcs. Fisher & Son, Dedham, gratuity, 2 »5-' John Fussell, Roxbury, " 'i 194 . Alfred R. Ellis, Walpole, 1st premiuni. ♦" Israel liuntinp, Needham, 2(1 " 2 UNDER ONE TEAR OLD. Jnlin R. Dow, Milton, 1st premium, #3 William Pierce, Needham, 2d " 2 Joseph Fisher & Son. Dedham, 3d " 1 Aaron D. Weld, W. Roxbury, gratuity, 2 Edward R. Pope, Quincy, " 1 Seth Blake, Dover, " 1 Uenj. H. Tubbs, Dedham, " 1 IN MILK. Aaron D Weld, W. Roxburr, 1st premium, Jfi Samuel J. Capen, Dorchester, 2d " 5 Aaron D. Weld, W. Roxbury, 3d " 4 WORKEK OXEN. Tiniothv Tucker, Milton, 1st premium, J8 Aaron 1). Weld, W. Roxburv, 2d " 6 Uenj. V. French, Bralntree, 3d " 5 En.i)ii ESSAY. Rev. John M. Merrick, Waipole, $10 DIPLOMAS. Peter Ford, Wrentham, Spading. Albert Southworth, .Stoughtou, Bulls. S. Palmer, Milton, Bull. .lesse Farrington, Dedham, Bull. Pavne & Mathes, Roxhury, Stallion. Samuel S. Whitne.v, Dedliam, Marc. John Fussell, Roxburv, '• John Fussell, Roxburv, Boar. George Houghton, Dorchester, Boar. H. L. Stone, Needham, Samuel J. Capen, Dorchester, " Joseph Mann, Jr., Dorchester, '• Wm. T G. .Morton, Needham, Sow. Joseph Robinson, Dorchester, Pigs. Mrs. Lvdia A. Swett. Ryxburv, Ru?. Miss Olive C. Guild, Dedham; I)e-;i-jns. George W. McElroy, Dorchester, Worsted Work, Mrs. John G. Jones, Foxboro', Wax Fruit. Boston Carpet Co.. Roxburv, Carpi ts. Charles B. Grossman, Dedham, Drills. 196 ^0ifol(i ligriailtaral ^atitt^. LIST OF PREMIUMS FOR THE YEAR 1854. PROGRESSIVE HUSBANDRY. For the best conducted and most improved Farm during five con- secutive years, commencing in the year 1850 — of which the occupant shall present annually to the Trustees a satisfactory account of the ■whole management of the Farm — of the crops produced, of the im- provement made, and the cost of the same — of the stock kept and the capital employed — a premium of One Hundred Dollars, to be paid in 1855. Note. Whenever any Farm shall be entered for this premium, the Secretary of the Society shall give notice thereof to the Trustees in the Town in which such Farm is situated; and the said Trustees, in conjunction with the Committee on Farms, will be required to examine the Farm from time to time, and to certify the general management of it, and the mode of keeping the cattle, particularly in regard to their comfort and cleanliness. MANAGEMENT OF FARMS. For the most valuable and economical improvements in the culti- vation and management of Farms entirey during the year, including lands, crop, stock, and all other appendages, First premium, $25.00 I Third premium, $12.00 Second " 15.00 | Fourth " 8.00 Competitors for these premiums must give notice of their intention to the Secretary, on or before June 15. Farms offered for inspec- tion will be viewed by the Committee from the 20th June to 10th 197 July, and also in September. Any extraordinary field crop will, on notice, be visited by the Committee, and a report of the same be made to the Society. IMPROVING MEADOW AND SWAMP LANDS. For the best conducted experiment in reclaiming wet meadow or swamp lands, by drainage or otherwise, on not less than one acre, with a statement, in detail, of the course of management and the produce, &c., First premium, ^15.00 | Second premium, ' $10.00 OLD PASTURE LANDS. For the best conducted experiment in restoring and improving old. pasture lands, with an account of the means employed and the expense o£.iili& dBimOy^^--^-.^ ./.^.r^^^^r^-^^rf^i^-i^ ^^^^^^'^ First premium, $8.00 | Second premium, $6.00 For the best written report given! by any member of the Society, and worthy of publication, of any improvement observed in any meadow, or swamp, or old pasture' lands, in the County, — other than those lands for which the above mentioned premiums may be claimed, A premium of $,10.00. CLEARING AND ENCLOSING UNIMPROVED LANDS. For the best conducted experiment of clearing unimproved lands, on not less than one acre ; conditions and specifications the same as in meadow and swamp lands. First premium, $15.00 | Second premium, $10.00 PLOUGHING. Double Teams. For the best performance in ploughing, at least one-eighth of an acre — within one hour — not less than seven inches in depth, First premium, $10.00 I Third premium, $6.00 Second " 8.00 Fourth " 4.00 198 Single Teams. For the best performance in ploughing, at least one-eighth of an acre, not less than six inches deep, First premium. Second " Third " Fourth " $8.00 Fifth premium, $4.00 7.00 Sixth . " 3.00 6.00 Seventh « 2.00 6.00 Horse Teams. horses. For , the best performance in ploughing with First premium, Second " $8.00 Third premium, $4.00 Q.hO Fourth " 2.00 Note. A Double Team will consist of two yokes of oxen, with or without a driver ; or a team of one yoke of oxen and a horse also, with or without a driver. Single Team, one yoke of oxen without a driver. Competitors must own their teams and ploughs, and enter the same in their own names. Notice to compete must he given to the Secretary on or before the Saturday previous to the Exhi- bition. ' In awarding premiums, one hour will be allowed for the performance otf^' the work, regard being had to the width and the depth of the furrow-slice, and the evenness, ease and quiet with which the work is performed. EXPERIMENTS IN SUBSOIL PLOU(|^HINa. For the most satisfactory experiment, on not less than one acre of land, of the effect 'of subsoil ploughing, to be determined bj the difference in the value of the crops, raised on equal portions of equally manured land, of equal quality, one-half of whicli having been sub- soil i)loughed, the other half ploughed in the usual manner, — state- . ments of the depth of ploughing, in each instance, together with all the particulars of culture required, First premium, $10.00 | Second premium, $7.00 SPADING. For the best performance in spading, not less thain ten inches in depth, on a piece of not less than one hundred square feet of sward land ; due regard being had to time, the thoroughness of the pulveri- zation of the soil, and the state in which it is left for the reception of seed — the labor to be performed with a common square spade. First premium, $8, and diploma ; second do., $7 ; third do., $6 ; fourth do., $5; fifth do., $4; sixth do., $3; seventh do., $2; eighth do., $1. 199 EXPERIMENTS ON MANURES. For an exact and satisfactory experiment in the preparation and application of manures, either animal, vegetable or mineral, due regard being had to economy, a premium of ■ $15.00 For an exact and satisfactory experiment in the application alone of manures, in the best manner, and with the greatest economy, First premium, ^10.00 J Second premium, $5.00 TURNING IN CROPS AS A MANURE. For the most satisfactory experiment of turning in crops as a manure, either green or drt/, on not less than one-half acre of land, a detailed account of the whole process to be given in writing, First premium, $8.00 | Second premium, $6.00 COMPARATIVE VALUE OF CROPS AS FOOD FOR CATTLE. For the most satisfactory experiment upon a stock of cattle, not less than four in number, in ascertaining the relative value of the diflFerent kinds of fodder used, with a statement in detail of the quantity and value of the same, as compared with English hay, the experi- ment to be made in the three winter months, First premium, $15.00 | Second premium, $10.00 FATTENING CATTLE. For the most satisfactory experiment in feeding cattle, with a statement in detail of the process and the result, First premium, $10.00 | Second premium, $5.00 FATTENING SWINE. For the most satisfactory experiment in feeding swine, with a statement in detail of the process and the result. First premium, $8.00 | Second premium, $5.00 SOILING OF CATTLE. For the most satisfactory experiment of the soiling of cattle, with a detailed statement of the process and the result — regard being 200 had to the saving of manure, and to the comparative expense of pasturing, First premium, $15.00 j Second premium, $10.00 * GREEN FODDER. For the best conducted experiment in raising corn fodder or other succulent feed to be used green, — on not less than one-half acre of land, — with a statement, in detail, of the mode and cost of culti- vation, a premium of $7.00 HAY. For the largest quantity and best quality of English Hay per acre, not less than two acres, produced on any farm in the County, regard being had to the mode and cost of cultivation, a premium of $6.00 CULTIVATION OF GRAIN CROPS. 1. For the best conducted experiment in Wheat, on not less than one-half SiCre of land, first premium, $6 ; second do., $4. 2. For the best conducted experiment in H^e, on not less than one acre of land, first premium, $4; second do., $2. 3. For the best conducted experiment in Oats, on not less than one acre of land, first premium, $4 ; second do., $2. 4. For the best conducted experiment in Barley, on not less than one acre of land, first premium, $4 ; second do., $2. 5. For the best conducted experiment in Indian Corn, on not less than one acre of land, first premium, $8; second do., $5; third do., $3. 6. For the best conducted experiment in raising ^V^^ite Beans, on not less than one-half a.cve of land, a premium of $6. Claimants for premiums on Grain Crops are required to notify the Chairman of the Committee on Grain Crops on or before the 15th of November, by a written statement, containing the following particu- lars : — a description of the soil ; the value of the land ; the interest on that value ; the amount of taxes ; the value of manure, or ashes, or plaster used; the cost of seed; the expense of preparing the 201 ground, of sowing or planting ; of cultivating and harvesting the crop, and the total value of the crop raised ; that by a single glance the net profit of the production may be seen. Note. Applications for premiums on Small Grains to be made on or before the first of Julj', and on Indian Corn on or before the fifteenth of August ; not less than a half bushel of each kind to be shown at the annual exhibition. Tho quantity to be ascertained by weight, as follows : — Corn, 56 lbs. to the bushel ; Rye, 56 ; Barley, 46 ; Buckwheat, 46 ; Oats, 30 ; Wheat, 60. MIXED CROPS. For the best conducted experiment in the cultivation of mixed crops of grains and vegetables, in alternate rows — first premium, $6 ; second premium, $4. This must be made on not less than one acre of land, and a statement in detail of the expense and product will be required. ROOT CULTURE. 1. For the best conducted experiment in raising Potatoes^ a premium of $6.00 2. For the best conducted experiment in raising Sugar Beets, a premium of $8.00 3. For the best conducted experiment in raising Carrots, a premium of $8.00 4. For the best conducted experiment in raising Parsnips, a premium of $8.00 5. For the best conducted experiment in raising Puta Baga, a premium of $8.00 6. For the best conducted experiment in raising Mangel Wurt- zel, a premium of $8.00 T. For the best conducted experiment in raising Flat Turnips, a premium of $5.00 8. For the best conducted experiment in raising Onions, first premium, $5 ; second do., $4. Samples of one bushel to be presented at the annual exhibition. These crops must be raised on not less than one-half acre of land, except Parsnips, which may be on one-quarter of an acre, and the quantity ascertained by weight, as follows : — Carrots, 55 lbs. ; 202 Sugar Beets, GO ; Mangel Wurtzel, GO ; Ruta Baga,GO ; Parsnips, 45 ; Round Turnips, 50. Note. Application for premiums on Hoot Crops to be made on or before the loth of Sept. It shall be the duty of the several Committees on these experi- ments, to take into consideration the character of the soil on which the crops have been raised, the capital employed, the whole management and cost of the experiment, and to award the premiums with particular regard to the general merits of the applicant, who shall be required to make a detailed statement on or before the 20th of November. VEGETABLES. Autumn and Winter Squashes. For the best conducted experiment on raising the Autumnal Marrow and Winter Croohieck Squash, on not less than one-fourth of an acre of land, at least one dozen to be exhibited at the Exhibition, a premium of $5.00. Cabbages. For the best conducted experiment in raising Cabbages, on not less than one-half acre of ground, a premium of $5.00 For the best collection and variety of Garden Vegetables, regard being had to the quantity as well as quality exhibited — first premium, a Silver Cup of the value of $10 ; second do., $5 ; third do., $4 ; fourth do., $3 ; fifth do., $2 ; sixth do., $1. Potatoes. For the best new variety of Seedling Potatoes, superior to any kind now in cultivation, a premium of $20.00 For the best collection of Potatoes, not less than a peck of each variety, a premium of $5.00 KITCHEN GARDEN. For the best kitchen garden, on not less than one quarter of a acre of ground — regard being had to the quantity, variety and ex- cellence of the vegetables therein, and the mode and expense of cultivation — a premium of $5.00 ANIMALS. To he entered in the names of their proper Owners, tvho must have had iliem six months before Exhibition. Note. In all cases where it is found that animals entitled to the first premium, have before received the same at any former exhibition of the Society, a Diploma, certifying that said animal is the best, shall be awarded instead of the premium. 203 The Diploma of the Society shall be awarded at the discretion of the several Committees, for animals exhibited from without the limits of the County. Fat Cattle. For the best beef animal, fattened within the County, regard being had to the manner of feeding, and the expense thereof — first premium, §8 ; second do., $5 ; third do., $3. Bulls. For the best Bull, not less than one year old, on satis- factory evidence being given that he shall be kept for use in the County for nine months from the day of exhibition — Jersey, first premium, $5 ; second do., $3. Ayrshire, first premium, $5 ; second do., $3. Durham, first premium, $5 ; second do., $3. Devon, first premium, $5 ; second do., $'6. For the best Bull Calf of any of the above classes, under one year old — first premium, $3; second do., $2; third do., $1. Cows. For Cows not less than three years old — Jersey, first premium, $5 ; second do., $3. Ayrshire, first premium, $5 ; second do., $3. Durham, first premium, §5 ; second do., §3. Devon, first premium, $5 ; second do., $3. Grade, first premium, $5 ; second do., $3. Native, first premium, $5; second do., $3. Heifers. For Heifers from one to three years old — Jersey, first premium, $3; second do., $2. Ayrshire, first premium, ^3 ; sec- ond do., $2. Durham, first premium, $3 ; second do., $2. De- von, first premium, $3; second do., $2. Grade, first premium, $3; second do., §2. Native, first premium, $3; second do., §2. Best Heifer under one year old — first premium, ^3 ; second do., $2; third do., $1. Milch Cows. For the best Milch Cow, not less than three years old, with satisfactory evidence of the quantity and quality of her milk, and the manner in which she has been fed, certificates of which must be filed in writing, of the product of her milk and butter made from the cow during two periods of ten days each. Three months, neither more nor less, shall elapse between the two periods of trial aforesaid, and the last trial shall be completed be- fore the date of the Annual Exhibition. In cases where the milk is not made into butter, the quantity and weight of the milk must be stated, time of the cow's calving, and quality of the calf. Ver- bal statements cannot be depended upon or received. First pre- mium, $10 ; second do., $8 ; third do., $Q; fourth do., $4. Produce of Milk for the entire year. For the best con- 204 ducted experiment with a stock of Milch Cows, not less than ten in number, and yielding, each cow, not less, on an average, than eight quarts per day, for a period of one year, — with a statement, in de- tail, of the character, age, and breed of the cows, and of the method and expense of feeding them, a premium of $25.00. For a similar experiment, with a stock of not less than six cows, and with same conditions, a premium of $15.00. For a similar experiment, with a stock of not less than four cows, and with same conditions, a premium of $10.00. Heifers in Milk. Not more than three years old — first pre- mium, $6 ; second do., $5; third do., $4. WORKING OXEN. For the best pair of Working Oxen, not less than four years old, regard being had to their size, strength, docility, training and ap- pearance. In testing their power, the load is not to exceed two tons — first premium, $8; second do., $6; third do., $5; fourth do., $3. Steers. For the best pair of three years old Steers, and under four, broken to yoke — first premium, $5; second do., $4; third do., $3. Two YEARS OLD AND UNDER THREE — first premium, $5; se- cond do., $4. One YEAR OLD AND UNDER TWO — first premium, $3; second do., $2. Town Teams. For the largest and best team of Oxen from any town or city in the County — first premium, $2,0 ; second do., $15 ; third do., $10. HORSES. For the best pair of Matched Horses, a premium of $6.00 For the best Single Carriage Horse, a premium of 3.00 For the best Stallion, on satisfactory assurance that he shall be kept in the County at least nine months from the day of Exhibition, a premium of $10.00 Colts. For the best four years old Colt, raised in the County, first premium, $6.00 205 For the best three years old Colt, raised in the Countj, first pre- mium, ■ ^5.00 For the best two years old Colt, first premium, 3.00 For the best Yearling, first premium, 2.00 Breeding Mares. For the best Breeding Mare, with Foal by her side — first premium, $7 ; second do., $5. Farm Horses. For the best Farm Horse, a premium of $6.00 SWINE. For the best Boar, not less than six months old — first premium, $6 ; second do., $5 ; third do., $4. For the best Breeding Sow, with or without Pigs — first pre- mium, $6 ; second do., $5 ; third do., $4. For the best litter of Weaned Pigs, not less than four in number, and from two to six months old, regard being had to their age — first premium, $5 ; second do., $3 ; third do., $2. For the best fat Hog, with statement of the method of keeping — first premium, $6 ; second do., $5. SHEEP. For the best flock, not less than six in number — first premium, $5 ; second do., $3. LIVE FOWLS. For the best pair of Black Spanish, $2 ; do. do. Black Shang- haes, $2 ; do. do. White Shanghaes, $2; do. do. Marsh or Forbes Shanghaes, $2 ; do. do. Dorkings, $2 ; do. do. Poland, $2; do. do. Bolton Grays, $2 ; do. do. Barn-yard Fowls, $2 ; do. do. Fowls,, $2 ; do. do. Guinea Fowls, $2 ; do. do. Bantams, $2 ; do. do. Ducks, $2. For the best conducted experiment in raising, keeping and fat- tening any of the various breeds of fowls, with a statement, in de- tail, cf the method, expense, and profit of the same, particulary of the amount of eggs produced from a given number of hens, in order to determine their laying properties, and also their condition in flesh and market value, — no premium to be awarded without such state- ment,— first premium, $6 ; second do., $4. 15 206 For the best lot of Geese, $3 ; do. Turkeys, ^3 ; second best lot of Turkejs, $2. For the best lot of Live Fowls, not less than twelve, $4 ; second best lot, not less than six, $S ; third best lot, not less than six, $2. No Fowls entered after nine o'clock shall be entitled to a pre- mium. DAIRY. For the best produce of Butter, on any farm within the County, for four months, from the 20th of May to the 20th of September, a sample of not less than twenty pounds to be exhibited — quantity as -well as quality to be taken into view, with a full account of the manner o^ feeding the Cows, and the general management of the milk and butter — first premium, $10; second do., $8; third do. $5 ; fourth do., |3. Note. It will be seen that these premiums are offered for the best produce on the Farms, and not simply for the best specimens exhibited. Competitors will therefore be particular in keeping an account, and preparing a statement of the entire produce within the time mentioned. Each lot presented for premium must be numbered, but not marked ; any public, or known mark, must be com- pletely concealed, nor must the competitors be present at the examination. For the best 40 lbs. of Butter, that drawing the premium to be placed upon the dinner table for consumption, a premium of $20. For the best box of Butter, of not less quantity than 12 lbs. — first premium, $G ; second do., $4; third do., $2. Note, liutter to be presented on the morning of the second day. Cheese. For the best specimen of Cheese, of not less than 50 lbs. — first premium, $5 ; second do., $3 ; third do., $2. Butter. For the best and most satisfactory statement at the An- nual Exhibition in 1854, of the quantity produced from the milk of any number of Cows, not less than four nor more than seven, from January 1st, 1854, to the day of exhibition, in the fall, in- cluding a description of the character, age and breed of the Cows, and a particular account of the feeding and general management — first premium, $S ; second do., $6. For any number of Cows more than seven — first premium, $10 ; second do., $8. 207 BREAD. For the best loaf of Wheat and Indian, of two to four lbs. weight — first premium, $3 ; second premium, $2. For the best loaf made of Unbolted Wheat, which shall be grown in the County, of two to four pounds' weight — first pre- mium, $3 ; second do., $2. For the best loaf of Rje and Indian, of four to six lbs. weight — first premium, ^3; second do., $2. For the best loaf of Wheat Bread, of two to four lbs. weight — first premium, ^3 ; second do., $2. The bread presented for premium must be made on the day previous to the Exhibition, by some female member of a family, exclusive of hired persons, in whose name the entries shall be made, and to whom the premiums shall be awarded. The bread shall be baked in the oven commonly used by the family in which it shall be made. A written statement of the process of making the bread shall accompany each loiif. There shall be Committees appointed to judge of the several descriptions of bread, to whom the names of the contributors shall not be known, and no person shall serve on said Committees if any member of his family shall be a competitor. FOREST TREES. For the best plantation of Forest Trees, of either of the follow- ing varieties, viz. : — AVhite Oak, Yellow Oak, Locust, Birch, White Ash, or Walnut, Scotch Larch, Norway Spruce, Pitch Pine and White Pine, or other varieties, not less than three years old, and not less than one thousand trees, a premium, to be awarded in 1855, of $20. For the best Plantation, to contain not less than five hundred trees, a premium of $10. Ornamental Planting. To any city or town of Norfolk County, for the largest number and best growth of ornamental trees, which shall be planted in a public square or on the roadside — first premium, |^30; second do., $20. 208 To any indiviilual or Society, regard being had to tlie number of persons associated, for the largest number and best growth of orna- mental trees, which shall be planted in a public square or on the roadside — first premium, ^10 ; second do., ^5. These premiums to be awarded in the autumn of 185 i, and if awarded to a city or town, to be graduated by the population accord- ing to the census of 1850. FRUIT TREES. Apple Orchard. For the best Apple Orchard, of not less than seventy-jive trees, which shall have been set out since 1849, and which shall be in the best and most thriving condition in 1854 — first premium, ^15; second do., $10; third do., $7. Pear Trees. For the best engrafted or budded Pear Trees, set out since 1849, and which shall be in the most thriving condition in the autumn of 1854, not less than txveyity-five trees — first premium, $10 ; second do., $5. Renovation of old Apple Orchards. For the most satisfac- tory experiment in the renovation of old Apple Orchards, not less than ten trees, on any one farm, which, being re-claimed, shall in 1854 be in fine productive fruit — first premium, $10; second do., Peach Orchards. For the best Peach Orchard, of not less than iifty trees, set out since 1850, and which shall be in the most thrifty bearing condition in the autumn of 1854 — first premium, $10; second do., %b. For the Peach Orchard, of not less than fifty trees, grown from pits planted since 1851, on the spot where the trees stand, which shall be in the best condition in 1855 — first premium, $10 ; second do., $5. Seedling Apples or Pears. For the best variety of new Seedling Apples or Pears, of decidedly superior quality, one dozen specimens to be exhibited, together with a history of its origin, a description of its growth, and the bearing character of the tree — first premium, $10 ; second do., $5. 209 SEEDLING GRAPES. For a new variety of Native or Seedling Grape, equal or superior to the Isabella, ripening, in this County, in the open air, by the middle of jSqjtemher, TproMc and suitable for the table — first pre- mium, $20; second do., $10. CRANBERRY VINES. For the most successful experiment in transplanting Cranberry Vines, or raising them from the seed, which shall be in the most flourishing and productive state on the first of September, 1854. Competitors will be required to give a particular account of their several operations. First premium, $15.00 [ Second premium, $10.00 HEDGES. For the best live Hedge Fence, of not less than one thousand feet in length, premium to be awarded in 1854. First premium, $10.00 | Second premium, $5.00 DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES. Fancy Articles, — including Needlework, Crotchetwork, Shell- work, Millinery, Drawings, Paintings, &c. For such articles in this department as may be deemed worthy, a premium or gratuity, at the discretion of the Committee. Note. It should be understood that, in this department of Ladies' work — while other things ■will receive due consideration — the premiums are intended sokly for neidy made articles -vNhich are really useful, or particularly beautiful For well made garments of any kind ; for stocking knitting of M'ool, cotton, or silk ; for bonnet and cap making ; for all articles of children's wear, well made or tastefully embroidered ; for neat and thorough mending, patching, and darning ; for drawing, designing, or painting in oil or water colors ; for models in plaster, wood, or marble, &;c. Children under 12 years of age, attending the public schools, are not invited to offer anything for premium, except such articles as will show their docility, dili- gence, and good behavior at school, and shall be accompanied with a ccrtificata of approbation from their school teacher. To such articles particular attention wiU be given, and premiums at the discretion of the Committee. Manufactures of Straw. For the best Straw Bonnet — first premium, $8; second do., $6. 210 For the best specimen of Straw Braid, — not less tlian 100 yards, — first premium, $3; second do., $2. Manufactures op Cloth, Flannels, Hosiery, &c. Cotton Cloth. For the best specimen of Cotton Cloth, of any description, not less than twenty-eight yards in quantity, a premium or gratuity, at the discretion of the Committee. Woollen Cloth. For the best specimen of Woollen Cloth, of any description, not less than twenty yards in quantity, a premium or gratuity, at the discretion of the Committee. Cotton and Woollen mixed. For the best specimen of Cotton and Woollen Cloth, of any description, not less than twenty yards in quantity, a premium or gratuity, at the discretion of the Committee. Flannels. For the best specimen of Flannel, not less than twenty yards in quantity, a premium or gratuity, at the discretion of the Committee. For the best specimen of Cotton Flannel, not less than twenty yards in quantity, a premium or gratuity, at the discretion of the Committee. For the best pair of Woollen Blankets, a premium or gratuity, at the discretion of the Committee. Hosiery, (fc. For the best specimen of Silk Hose, a premium of $1.50. For the best specimen of Silk Half Hose, a premium of $1. For the best specimen of Woollen Hose, a premium of $1. For the best specimen of Woollen Half Hose, a premium of 50 cents. For the best specimen of Cotton Hose, a premium of 50 cents. For the best specimen of Cotton Half Hose, a premium of 25 cents. For the best specimen of Worsted Hose, a premium of $1. For the best specimen of Worsted Half Hose, a premium of 50 cents. For the best specimen of Sewing Silk, not less than one pound, a premium of $2. For the best specimen of Knitting Yarn, not less than one pound, a premium of $1. For the best specimen of Spool Thread, not less than one pound, a premium of $1. For the best Fleece of Wool, a premium of $1. 211 For the best dozen Grain Bags, a premium of $1. For the best specimen of neat and thorough mending, patching, or darning of garments, hose, &c., a premium of $1. Carpetings, Rugs, and Floor Cloth. For the best "Common" Ingrain 2 ply Carpeting; Do. do. "Fine" do, do. do. Do. do. "Superfine" do. do. do. Do. do. "Common," "Fine," or "Superfine" Ingrain 3 ply Carpeting ; Do. do. Brussels Floor Carpeting ; Do. do. Tapestry do. do. Do. do. Velvet Carpeting. For each of these descriptions of Carpeting, a premium or the Society's Diploma, at the discretion of the Committee. Note. Ingrain 2 ply Carpetings -n-ill be judged by the comparative merits of pieces of similar -weight ; or, disregarding weight, by the quality of colors, the taste of shading, and the evenness in spinning and -weaving. For the best piece of Stair Carpeting, the Society's Diploma. For the best Hearth-Rug, the Society's Diploma. For the best specimen of Painted Floor Cloth, a premium or the Society's Diploma, at the discretion of the Committee. Counterpanes. For the best Counterpane — regard being had to quality and expense of materials — first premium, ^3; second do., $2. XoTE. Any article, in either of the foregoing departments, -vi'hich shall have been manufactured in the family of the person presenting it, -will receive the particular consideration of the Committee, and, if -worthj', a suitable ijremium. Glass, Earthen, Stone, and Wooden Ware. For the finest collections and best specimens of articles in each of these departments, a premium or gratuity, at the discretion of the Committee. Brass, Copper, Tin, Iron and Britannia Ware. For the finest collections and best specimens of articles in each of these departments, a premium or gratuity, at the discretion of the Committee. Carinet Work. For the best specimen of Cabinet Wort, a premium or the Society's Diploma. Iron Fencing, Gates, and Posts. For the best specimens of each — regard being had to cost and utility, as well as ornament — a premium or gratuity, at the discretion of the Committee. 212 Stoves. For the best Farmer's Cauldron Stove ; Do. do. Cooking do. Do. do. Parlor do. — a premium of $2 each. Horse and Ox Shoes. For the best specimens of Horse and Ox Shoes, a premium of $1. For the best specimen of Horse Shoes /or meadoiv land, a premium of $1. India Rubber Goods. For the finest collection and best speci- mens of India Rubber goods, a premium or gratuity, at the discretion of the Committee. Brushes, Combs, Hats, Caps and Gloves. For the finest collection and best specimens of each of these articles, a- premium or gratuity, at the discretion of the Committee. Leather, and Articles manufactured therefrom. For the best specimen of Thick Boots, a premium of Calfskin, Thin Boots other than Calfskin, Kipskin, Thick Brogans, Fine Brogans, Ladies' Boots, specimen of Upper or Sole Leather, or Morocco, a premium or gratuity, each, at the discretion of the Committee. For the best single Carriage Harness ; Do. do. double do. do. Do. do. Cart Harness, — a premium or gratuity, each, at the discretion of the Committee. For the best Riding Bridle, a premium of $1.00 Do. do. do. Saddle, do. 2.00 Do. do. Carriage or Cart Whip, a premium of 1.00 Carriages, Wagons, Carts, &c. For the best specimen of Family Carriages, for one horse or for two horses ; Do. do. Covered Wagon ; Do. do. Open do. Do. do. Farm do. Do. do. do. Cart; Do. do. Do. do. Do. do. Do. do. Do. do. Do. do. )rthe best spe ?mium of S2.00 do. 3.00 do. 2.00 do. 2.00 do. 1.00 do. 1.00 do. 1.00 213 For the best Farm Wheelbarrow, — a premium or gratuity, each, at the discretion of the Committee. Jellies, Preserves, Pickles, and Ketchups. For the finest collection and best specimens of each, made of articles of domestic growth, a premium or gratuity, at the discretion of the Committee. New Inventions. For any new invention of decided superiority and usefulness to the farmer, a premium or gratuity, at the discretion of the Committee. Note. It is to be understood that all articles presented for premiurri, in each of the foregoing departments, shall have been manufactured or produced within the County during the last year, and by the person presenting them. Also, that, in every case, the examining Committee shall have the right to substitute the Society's Diploma for a premium or gratuity, or to give it where no premium or gratuity has been awarded, at their discretion. Articles in either of the above departments, contributed to the exhibition by persons not resident in the County, shall receive suitable attention from the Committee, and, if worthy, be awarded the Society's Diploma. FRUITS AND FLOWEPvS. Accommodations will be provided for the exhibition of Fruits and Flowers, and Committees will be appointed to examine and report on such as may be presented. Whoever may present, is requested to furnish a minute, in writing, of the name of the owner, and a list of his contributions. FRUITS. For the best collection of Ajyj^les — first premium, |;5 ; second do., $3 ; third do., $2. For the best collection of Fears — first premium, $5 ; second do., |3 ; third do., $2. For the best collection of Peaches — first premium, $5; second do., $3; third do., $2. For the best dish of Pears, not less than one dozen specimens, a premium of $2. For the best dish of Apples, not less than one dozen specimens, a premium of $2. Grapes. For the best collection of i^ore/^;?, Grapes — first pre- mium, $5 ; second do., ^3. For the best collection of Native Grapes, a premium of $3. 214 Flowers. Premiums will be awarded on Flowers and Bouquets, in amount not exceeding ^15. AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. For the most extensive and finest collection of Agricultural Imple- ments— first premium, $15 ; second do., $10 ; third do., $5. For the best Agricultural Implements manufactured within the County and exhibited by the manufacturer — first premium, $6; second do., $4. For the best report, by any member of the Society, of any new or improved Agricultural Implement — describing its construction and operation, its cost and its benefit, and, in particular, its applicability to the soil of Norfolk County — a premium, if worthy of record, in proportion to the value of such report, at the discretion of the Com- mittee. AGRICULTURAL LABORERS. For a certificate — signed by his employer, and countersigned by any two trustees of the Society residing in the same town — of the superior character and qualifications of any man or boy, in the em- ployment of a member of the Society for a period, next preceding, of not less than two years, attesting the industry, integrity, respectful demeanor, and general good habits, during that time, of the bearer of such certificate, A premium of Membership of the Society, and a Diploma. PRIZE ESSAYS. For the best Essay on either of the following subjects, which may be considered by the Trustees worthy of publication : — Forest Trees. For the best Essay on the raising and cultivation of Forest Trees, a premium of $10. Insects. For the best Essay for the destruction of Insects in- jurious to vegetation, such as the Curculio, Borer, Canker- Worm, Caterpillar, Cut-Worm, Squash-Bur/, Striped-Bug, Rose-Bug,