30 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



another. Their scattered lights, thougli before obscure, if not 

 actually under a bushel, are thus concentrated, and enliditen 

 all. By a moderate contribution to a common fund, the best 

 agricultural books and periodicals arc made easily available, 

 and they may also thus combine for the purchase of desirable 

 labor-saving machinery, too costly for the separate means of 

 any. The testimony as to their utility from those who liave 

 engaged in them is ample and satisfactory, and their establish- 

 ment in every neighborhood is specially recommended to the 

 farmers of the State. 



In March, 1836, a resolve passed the Legislature, authorizing 

 a geological survey of the State, under which the services of Dr. 

 Charles T. Jackson were engaged. He entered upon tlie labor 

 that year, and the survey was continued during 1837 and 1838, 

 when it was suspended, probably in consequence of the pecuni- 

 ary pressure which the treasury of the State, in common with 

 its citizens, experienced at that period. IJis labors were of 

 great value in developing the mineral and agricultural resources 

 and capabilities of the State, and it is much to be regretted 

 that the survey was not fully completed. With a view to effect 

 this, resolves were passed March, 1855, and an appropriation 

 made for "The continuation of the Geological and Agricultnral 

 Survey of the State." One of these resolves provided that "the 

 geologist be required to make an accurate analysis of the soil 

 of at least two different localities in each town in the State," 

 and as the expense of these six to eight hundred accurate analy- 

 ses thus required, would absorb the whole appropriation, it is not 

 strange that the resolves proved inoperative, whereas, had this 

 requisition been omitted, the work would probably before this 

 have been completed, the geologist analyzing, as before, in such 

 instances as circumstances seemed to demand. 



Besides the legislation before mentioned, there have been at 

 various times special enactments granting bounties to encour- 

 age the growth of various products, wheat, corn, ttc. Produc- 

 tion was doubtless largely affected by these bounties, but the 

 increase was found temporary and evanescent. The policy was 

 always deemed somewhat questionable, the advocates of free 

 trade ever steadily opposing it, as merely stimulating, and the 

 conviction is now very generally entertained, that, like other 



