202 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



any one when taking the subject into consideration. In all such, 

 satisfactory evidence should be required, that the trial be faithfully 

 and accurately made, and be accompanied with such a detailed state- 

 ment of the process and results as may convey to others all the 

 benefits to be derived from them. The bare suaisestion of such 

 experiments might excite mental activity and inquiry in some who 

 are now content to travel their daily routine of labor in the tracks 

 of their fathers with no idea that any improvement is advisable or 

 practicable, and the attempt to put them into execution must involve 

 such a dealing with weights and measures as we rarely see on farms 

 at present, and prove an efficient aid to the adoption of habits of 

 system and order which of themselves would be a valuable acquisi- 

 tion to any farmer. An experimental State farm has sometimes 

 been suggested as an advisable means of securing progress. jMight 

 not a few hundreds of dollars expended in premiums for trials simi- 

 lar to what would be made at such an institution, accomplish more 

 than as many thousands expended upon it, both of direct results and 

 of incidental benefit to those makino- the trials 7 * 



Judging from the little experience we have in this matter, it 

 might at first be safe to offer more than we had means to pay. 

 Several years since, one of the county societies proposed to give a 

 liberal premium for the most satisfactory experiment upon a stock 

 of cattle, not less than four in number, in ascertaining the relative 

 value of the different kinds of fodder commonly used, with a state- 

 ment in detail of the quantity and value of the same, as compared 

 with English hay, the experiment to be made in the three winter 

 months, and the offer was repeated year after year, and never a single 

 applicant appeared for it. IMust there not be a sad degree of apathy 

 and great need of some stimulus to exertion where this could occur 7 

 During the three winter months, the farmer enjoys more leisure than 

 at any other season. The four head of cattle must needs be fed 



* 'tVhile the above is in type, a note is received from the Secretary of the West 

 Oxford Society, in which he says : " Would it not be well for the agricultural 

 societies to offer more premiums for experiments ? How would it do for the Board 

 to suggest a series of experiments or investigations, and assign to the different so- 

 cieties such as would be suited to their several localities ? " and again : " I think 

 it might be better, in many cases, not to piy out money for premiums, but to sub- 

 stitute agricultural books, implements, fruit trees, &q., &c." 



