SECRETARY'S REPORT. 201 



instance, more might be offered in some cases for general farm im- 

 provements, or for improvements in some special department, as for 

 underdraining, reclaiming swamps, improving pastures, planting 

 orchards, and the like. Such as these, it is true, would make no 

 addition to the attractiveness of the annual exhibition, but the gain 

 to the community might be not less real on this account. The State 

 society has set a good example in this matter, by offering a liberal 

 list of prospective premiums which are to be awarded after several 

 years of efforts. It is gratifying to notice that some of the county 

 societies are pursuing a similar course. One or more of these have 

 during the present year, offered one hundred dollars for best farm 

 improvements, the farms to be visited by the awarding committee 

 several times before the decisions are made. This necessarily in- 

 volves considerable time and labor on the part of the committee, but 

 so far as may be judged by the woi-king of it, as tried, the expendi- 

 ture seems to have proved a profitable one, both to the visitors and 

 the visited. Hints and suggestions may be given and received to 

 the mutual profit of all. It is understood that, ip. some quarters, 

 these offers have excited greater interest and emulation than any 

 other move which has been made for many years. My impression 

 is, that many of our societies at present make no offers of premiums 

 whatever to stimulate such improvements ; and much confidence is 

 felt that they might be generally adopted with great promise of good. 

 To be effectual, the amount should correspond, so far as means admit, 

 to the magnitude of the undertaking ; and one or two liberal pre- 

 miums might accomplish more than a greater number of less amount. 

 More applicants might fail to receive the premium, but none might 

 fail to reap a rich reward for their unwonted industry and applica- 

 tion. 



Then, too, with regard to encouraging accurate and careful trials 

 and experiments tending to solve doubts existing in connection with 

 points of every day practice, as the preparation and application of 

 manures, whether animal, vegetable, mineral, marine or mixed — 

 how best to make composts — whether to turn in manure to greater 

 or less depth or to leave it on the surface — the turning under of 

 green crops — different modes of feeding cattle, the value of the 

 usually cultivated roots compared with one another and with English 

 hay, and many others which would readily suggest themselves to 



