110 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



to do so, has been the subject of observation in the operations of 

 societies of a different character, in reference to themselves. In 

 an address delivered recently before the Society for promoting 

 Collegiate and Theological Education at the West, the speaker 

 said : " Societies tend to become dry and mechanical, falling 

 •into a routine, and losing new growths. Those institutions that 

 are nearest to human life, that feel its transforming power most, 

 will quietly change as it changes ; just as tlie skull accommo- 

 dates itself to the expanding brain ; and they live on without 

 revolution, while those that are fortified against change, and are 

 meant by their donors to be forever the same, wijl in the end, 

 not only be changed of necessity, but undergo changes by the 

 worst revolutionary processes. To avoid this, we must become 

 ligneous, growing upon old growths, and not herbaceous, planted 

 every spring and dying every winter." Our agricultural socie- 

 ty, if it sliould not seem like taking too much credit to itself, 

 had conceived the idea inculcated by the foregoing extract, and 

 had acted upon it, before it was so inculcated. When the 

 society perceived that the method formerly pursued of offering 

 premiums for superior farm management, failed of obtaining a 

 full response, it partially changed its mode of operation. The 

 public mind having changed, the society began to adapt itself to 

 that change ; when the farmers became disinclined to report 

 their farms, the society began to send out an agent to see them. 

 It is not true that agricultural enterprise in Essex County is 

 dead, or even sleeping. On the contrary, it is known to be 

 working with unwonted acti\dty. The only trouble is, it is so 

 busy that it cannot stop to report itself. Experiments are 

 making such as have never been made before. But these, as 

 might be expected where there is no harmony of action, are 

 more or less scattering and discordant. What is needed now, 

 is the converging and the perpetuating power of the society. 

 To become available to all, they must be collected, scrutinized, 

 analyzed and passed througli the crucible. Not an experiment 

 that is made among the farmers of the county, successful or 

 unsuccessful, should be permitted to be kept in a corner. In 

 this sense, whatever is " whispered in the ear in closets, should 

 be told upon the house-tops." The circumstances in which we 

 are pro^ddentially placed by a recent event, call on us to put 

 forth an effort in the direction above intimated. In order to 



