XX BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



cultural College, and our statute provisions concerning other 

 matters of agricultural interest. To meet this demand, I have 

 presented in the accompanying report a compilation of the 

 agricultural hiws of the State, having carefully examined the 

 Revised Statutes of 1871, and the volumes of the Public Acts 

 and Resolves from 1871 to 1878 for this purpose, giving such 

 statutes and parts of statutes as seemed to come within the 

 plan aimed at. I trust the same will be found of service to 

 all farmers, and especially to those connected with our various 

 agricultural organizations. 



There is a provision of the statute for making returns of 

 the agricultural productions of towns, cities and plantations, 

 by the assessors thereof, the full text of which will be found 

 on pages 242-243 of the present report, which seems to have 

 been a sort of dead letter ever since its enactment. It 

 appears to have been incorporated into the Revised Statutes 

 of 1871 from the laws of 1860 and 1862, and by a clerical 

 or typographical error the word "wheat" was omitted from 

 the statute in the course of revision. Consequently, when 

 the blanks to be sent out by the Secretary of State, as therein 

 provided, were printed, they were printed with this omission, 

 which in some instances was supplied by the municipal officers 

 in making their returns. The returns of these statements, or 

 of the blanks as filled out by officers of towns, have been made 

 with great irregularity — there being no penalty attached to 

 non-fulfillment of the provisions of the law — but such as have 

 been received, show how valuable such reports could be made 

 was a report for every town received, and could the results 

 thereof be put in some permanent and accessible form for 

 use and reference. Up to the date of sending this report to 

 press there have been received at the office of the Secretary 

 of State in 1878, two hundred and sixty returns, or from 

 about one-half the towns in the State. As these returns are 

 for "the use of the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture," I 

 bejr to suirgest that some measures be taken to render the law 

 more efifective, or that it be abolished entirely. Xo value 

 whatever can be attached to such returns from half the State 



