42 [Senate 



We have within the last year formed the nucleus for an agricultu- 

 ral museum which we hope to see greatly extended, and by consent 

 of the State officers, apartments, convenient and accessible, have been 

 granted us for an Agricultural Hall. 



These, gentlemen, have been some of the operations of this society. 

 We do not take to ourselves all the honor of the great advancement 

 of Agriculture since we have been an organized body — ^but we have 

 labored most assiduously to draw public attention to this great subject, 

 by disseminating information through our excellent agricultural 

 papers — ^by holding meetings, and discussing topics relating to it— 

 by exciting competition at our numerous and well conducted fairs — by 

 the valuable essays that have been contributed through our instru- 

 mentality — thus fostering and encouraging a taste for a pursuit whose 

 great benefits we cannot appreciate, for they will be lasting as time and 

 durable as our species. 



At the close of the address, the President elect, was introduced, 

 and on assuming the duties of the office, addressed the meeting in 

 an appropriate speech. 



In a portion of the volume of the Transactions for the present year, 

 will be found the proceedings of the American Institute. By an act 

 passed May, 1844, that useful association now report their proceed- 

 ings to the Executive Committee of the New-York State Agricultural 

 Society. They have added some valuable papers to our Transactions, 

 and they fully merit, as they have received in their section of the 

 State, the fullest confidence from all classes of our citizens. Their 

 course has been useful and prosperous, for from their reports we ga- 

 ther the fact, that in seven years they have collected at their exhibi- 

 tions $78,975 .62, all of which has again been distributed in the pay- 

 ment of premiums and their ordinary expenses — that not more than 

 one-fifth of their visiters pay for entrance, — that the contributors to 

 the last Fair, were at least two thousand, and that they exhibited 

 about twenty thousand articles of different varieties, of which most 

 were very superior specimens, as I had the pleasure of a personal in- 

 spection, and we trust that association, together with the State Agri- 



