74 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



is to put them where they will do most good — to disseminate 

 useful and reliable information among the farmers and others 

 who desire it, all over the State. Nor can it be said, as it some- 

 times has been, with any justice or truth, that the distribution 

 is partial or incomplete, for any farmer in the Commonwealth 

 who is interested enough in the subject to send to my ofhcc, 

 through his representative to the legislature, or otherwise, can 

 procure a copy of all these publications, the only question 

 asked being, whether he is a farmer and resides in this State. 



The Board of Agriculture have also distributed many hun- 

 dred volumes of the Patent Office Report on Agriculture, and 

 many thousand packages of seeds, of which some were received 

 through the Patent Office, and others imported directly from 

 abroad. It is designed to make the distribution of these and 

 similar publications, and seeds, much more general and sys- 

 tematical hereafter, when more convenient office accommoda- 

 tions will admit of it. I need not enlarge on the great good 

 which may be accomplished in this Avay, both by the diffusion of 

 useful knowledge, and the introduction of superior varieties of 

 vegetables, fruits and grains. 



Much attention has also been paid to the establishment of an 

 exchange of agricultural documents with the other States of the 

 Union, which publish volumes similar to our own. Copies of 

 their reports have been, and are thus regularly procured for 

 town libraries, and the libraries of county agricultural societies, 

 and farmers' clubs, and hundreds of volumes placed within the 

 reach of our people. An exchange of documents with the gov- 

 ernments of foreign countries, has also been instituted. At the 

 same time, great labor has been devoted to the formation of an 

 Agricultural Museum, in connection with the office of the Sec- 

 retary of the Board, at the State House ; some hundred speci- 

 mens of grasses, «fec., having been already collected. It is 

 proposed to bring together specimens of all varieties of grains, 

 grasses and other plants in the State ; every kind of birds, 

 insects and fishes, and every variety of soil, together with 

 mineralogical and geological specimens from different parts of 

 the Commonwealth. Models of the different species of all our 

 fruits are also to be procured, and each is to be labeled with its 

 proper name, and the local names by which it is known in 

 various parts of tiie State, the soil on which it flourishes best, 



