STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 551 



and for settling tlie local accounts, and making a clear and con- 

 cise report within four days after the fair. 



Grain. — The show of grain was highly creditable, especially to 

 ihe town of Hempstead; winter wheat weighing 62 lbs., oats 34 

 lbs. per bushel. A hill of corn was exhibited by Wm. L. Lanig, 

 having 11 good sized ears; Samuel E. Johnson also exhibited a 

 hill of " Wyandot corn," from one grain, having five stalks, and 

 nine ears on it, (so 'twas said). 



Precisely at noon, the President, Wm. T. McCoun, Esq., intro- 

 duced the orator of the day, Mr. B. P. Johnson, the well-known 

 Secretary of the New York State Agricultural Society, who pro- 

 ceeded to give his crowded audience a lesson full of practical 

 wisdom and sound sense. He treated particularly of the utility 

 of such agricultui-al exhibitions as this, enforcing his counsels by 

 comparisons between American and British agriculture. He held 

 that agricultural shows are things of infinite importance to the 

 farmers and producers. Men who will not contribute of their 

 substance to enrich their agricultui-al gatherings, on the ground 

 that if they did exhibit they would be beaten, he argued were the 

 men who were sure to be beaten, because of their lack of enter- 

 prise and energy. He had learned during his connection with 

 the State Agricultural Society, that the men who were the most 

 attentive and the most regular in their attendance upon the exhi- 

 bitions, were the most successful farmers in the State. Nor is it 

 essential tliat the farmer should be a learned man to be a good prac- 

 tical agriculturist; for, although the educated man, all other tilings 

 being equal will be the most successful, yet the man in this State 

 who took the 1st premium for improved farms in 1855, was a plain, 

 honest, country farmer, J. V. Grove, Ovid, Seneca county; and there 

 are many more like him. Mr. Johnson spoke in this connection of 

 the Agricultural College which is finally to be established in this 

 State after seven years of effort. He was proud to say that the 

 site for that institution had been selected, and he made a point of 

 inculcating in the ear of his audience the lesson of the necessity 

 of giving the young farmer such a culture as shall enable him to 

 advance his own peculiar science to a point far beyond that which 

 it had reached. Certain principles lie at the foundation of all 

 good farming. No farmer can be a practical man unless he 

 manage his concerns with industry, energy and skill. He should 



