SECRETARY'S REPORT. 19 



safe keeping. Thus, for some twenty years, one great object 

 in the bestowal of state bounty on the several societies, viz : the 

 diffusion of the information — the results of experience — accu- 

 mulated through their agejicy, utterly failed of accomplishment. 

 During this period, efforts were not wanting to introduce a 

 better state of things; but, little was accomplished until 1852, 

 when an act passed the Legislature establishing a Board of 

 Ao:riculture :' nor was this act what its friends desired, for in its 

 passage, the original bill was so amended, or whittled away, as 

 to be well nigh deprived of efficiency. It was as follows : 



An act to establish a Board of Agriculture. 



Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in Legis- 

 lature assembled, as follows : 



Sect. 1. Each of the incorporated agricultural societies in this 

 state, shall, at their meetings in the fall for the purpose of holding 

 their cattle shows and fairs, choose one of their members, who shall 

 thereby be a member of the board of agriculture of the State of Maine.. 



Sect. 2. Every person thus chosen shall receive credentials of the 

 fact of his being thus chosen a member of said board of agriculture, 

 signed by the president and secretary of his respective society, and he 

 shall be paid for his services, a sum not exceeding two dollars per day, 

 out 'of the moneys received by said society from the state in accord- 

 ance with chapter eighty-two of revised statutes. 



Sect. 3. The board of agriculture shall hold a meeting at Augusta, 

 on the third Wednesday of January, annually, when they shall or- 

 ganize by the choice of a president, seci'etary and such other officers 

 as they may deem necessary. It shall be the duty of the board to 

 discuss such subjects as pertain to the agricultural interests of the 

 state, and to devise and recommend, from time to time, to the several 

 agricultural societies in the state, and to the people, facts, improve- 

 ments, discoveries and views, in regard to the then present condition 

 and future prosperity of agriculture in the state, and to annually make 

 to the legislature, through the joint standing legislative committee on 

 agriculture, a report on said suhjects, which shall be published by the 

 legislature as a public document for distribution among the j^eople. 



Sect. 4. It shall be the duty of the secretary of the board, in ad- 

 dition to keeping the records of the doings of the board, to prepare for 

 the press all matter which the board shall order to be published, and 

 shall superintend the publication of the same ; for which services he 

 shall receive one hundred dollars per annum, out of any unappropri- 

 ated moneys in the treasury of the state. 



[Approved April 23, 1852.] 



