378 BOARD OP AQRICULTUllE, 



Mr. CoOTNS of Eddington. A Farmers' Club was started at East 

 Eddington last fall, and we held meetings regularly until the roads 

 became badly blocked by deep snows, and again towards spring, 

 and kept them up until planting time; since which we -hate not 

 held any, but we expect to resume in October. They have assisted 

 us in thinking and comparing notes one with another, and that is 

 what we farmers most need. We are very much isolated ; we do 

 not know how our neighbors succeed, nor how the farmer a few 

 miles from us prepares his land, how he puts in his seed, how he 

 manages his ci'ops. We do not understand one another sufficiently, 

 and I hope tha^ these farmers' clubs, as well as the future meetings 

 of the county societies, and especially such meetings as we have 

 enjoyed during this session, will make the farming community 

 better acquainted with each other, and enable them better to under- 

 stand their whole duty as farmers. 



Mr. AValker of Sagadahoc. We had a very interesting discus- 

 sion in our club in respect to the working of cows. I would like 

 to have some gentlemen state their views on that subject. Will 

 the Secretary give us his ? 



Secretary Goodale. I have no experience in this matter, and 

 my observation is little more than of a team which I have some- 

 times seen in the streets of Portland, — and which I have an im- 

 pression belonged in Ilarpswell, — but I am not sure. Ilarpswell 

 is a long, narrow town, nearly surrounded by the ocean, and is 

 famed for fishing as well as for farming. Although situated in 

 Cumberland County, it is more conveniently connected with the 

 Sagadahoc County Agricultural Society. If the gentleman will 

 look at the returns from that society, published in our volume of 

 Transactions for 1857, he will find a statement from Thomas Alex- 

 ander of Ilarpswell, who claimed and received a premium offered 

 for cows "yielding greatest profits," and saying that his yoke, 

 eight and nine j'ears old, had performed the work on his farm in 

 place of oxen, for five years past, were kind and docile, were not 

 injured by the work for milking or breeding, had furnished him 

 with milk for eleven months in the year, and during the best of 

 feed gave about sixteen quarts each daily. When that statement 

 came to me, I thought it rather strong — rather more a fish story 

 than a farm story — that it was to be taken with some grains of 

 salt — and I think so still, but inasmuch as the committee, who 

 ought to be competent judges, awarded the" premium and so ac- 

 knowledged the claim, I ventured to publish it. 



