SECRET.YRY'S REPORT, 21 



the job is well enough done, for the pay received, and our friend's 

 animal is awarded a premium. The Trustees, after much care in 

 publishing the law, and giving personal notice of its requirements 

 in regard to statements, and even extending the time a number of 

 days after the fair for the reception of statements in those cases 

 where awards had been made in their absence, proceed to prune 

 the reports of the judges, and our friend finds, after all proceedings 

 are closed, his name omitted in the published report. He there- 

 upon questions 'the powers that be'; and though he values himself 

 on his general intelligence, he pleads ignorance of the regulation, 

 and straightway waxes exceeding wroth, and proceeds to blow up 

 the whole niggardly concern ; in which effort he only succeeds in 

 exploding himsel£ 



Another, with the best intentions, gets his blank of the Secretary 

 on the morning of the show, and asks him to fill it with his state- 

 ment. The Secretary is fully employed and cannot attend to it. 

 He then looks for a friend who is ready with the pen, and whether 

 he finds him or not, the blank is filled at last in a hurry ; and he 

 cannot under the circumstances remember that his pet Durham or 

 Devon has eaten anything in winter but straw and a little hay, or has 

 had in summer anything but an ordinary pasture. The milk it 

 sucked for the first six months — the little palatable messes by 

 which it was prepared for an easy transition from milk to a more 

 solid diet — the extras it had all along received, were of too little 

 consequence to be named in a hurry. Or, to bring both winter 

 and summer keep into one concise and lucid expression, he simply 

 says, 'has had only ordinaiy keeping'; and his duty to the State is 

 discharged. To the curious, it is a matter of astonishment how 

 much straw our premium stock consumes. 



Our hope is large. We hope to see the time when a man will 

 ■ be ashamed to plead ignorance of the law prescribing the powers 

 and duties of agricultural societies. We hope to see statements 

 fully and fairly made, the rule, and not the exception. We hope 

 to see our farmers of talent and learning, by their researches and 

 experiments, speedily infuse new life and hope through the State, 

 making our agricultural paper and our reports what they should 

 be— hand-books for our guide, leading all into new and better 

 modes of cultivation. 



Farming is assuming the place of an art ; and our laws are de- 

 signed to encourage it as an art. There is no fairness in taking a 

 premium for an article that is excellent only by chance ; the thing 



