10 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



interesting wonld be his portrait, when, raised on his death-bed, 

 he took a last fond look at his herd of cattle, which he had 

 requested might be driven slowly before his window, one by 

 one. 



The " Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture " 

 was organized in 1792, and among its one hundred and forty- 

 seven original members were, John Hancock, — who approved 

 the act of incorporation as governor, — John Adams, Samuel 

 Adams, Fisher Ames, George Cabot, John Brooks, Elbridge 

 Gerry, William Heath, Benjamin Lincoln, Samuel Phillips, 

 James Sullivan, and other eminent Massachusetts men. The 

 contributors to its original fund, raised " to be distributed in 

 premiums for the encouragement of useful discoveries and 

 improvements," were mostly '' solid men of Boston," but it 

 was the official boast of an editor of its journal,* in after years, 

 that its original roll embraced " members in all parts of Massa- 

 chusetts and Maine, at least seven-eighths of whom were cliosen 

 from ag-ricultural counties." Truly did the same gentleman, 

 (Hon. John Lowell, a native of Newburyport,) remark : " The 

 institvition was ahead of the age and of the intelligence of the 

 State, and of public spirit. Its first two volumes will show 

 that the trustees were not remiss. Their queries, distributed 

 all over the State, prove their zeal, their intelligence, their 

 intimate knowledge of the real wants of agriculture." Nobly 

 did the farmers of Essex follow the example of Pickering, 

 Cutter, Kittredge, Spofford, Tyng, and others who took a deep 

 interest in this State institution, and in 1822, when it numbered 

 over seven hundred members, one hundred of them belonged 

 to this county. The early Transactions show that many pre- 

 miums were claimed and won by those who tilled the " Pleas- 

 ant Watering Place," and when the " Brighton Shows " were 

 instituted, in 1817,t Essex county was never backward in 

 sending the best specimens of her flocks and her herds. 



The " Essex County Agricultural Society," was formed in 

 1818, by twenty-one practical farmers, who met at Topsfield, 

 organized, and elected Col. Timothy Pickering their president. J 



* Massachusetts Agricultural Journal for 1823. 



■j- The " Oakes Cow " was exhibited at the first Brighton Show. 



X See Address of J. W. Proctor, in 184t, and an interesting biographical 

 sketch of Col. Pickering, written for the " Albany Cultivator " by the same 

 gentleman. 



