MASSACHUSETTS IN THE EXHIBITION. 139 



live have all had a circular sent to them by the Massachu- 

 setts commission, urging them to make as valuable and 

 interesting an exhibit as possible. I beg you, when you 

 return to your homes, if you are selectmen, or have any influ- 

 ence with the selectmen of your town, to take hold of this 

 matter, and push it forward. It will be the starting-point for 

 all time, so that when the Centennial has passed, and years 

 have gone by, the people of this State will look back to the 

 historical collections illustrating your public buildings, the 

 products of your farms, the laying out of your farms and 

 highways, and everything else, as a starting-point, which we 

 have not now, of what the country was a hundred years ago, 

 and which posterity will most thankfully refer to should the 

 work be properly done. 



I hope that when this meeting dissolves every gentleman 

 here will go home determined to do his share in adding to this 

 very important exhibit of the agriculture of Massachusetts ; 

 that if he has it in his power to send any information to the 

 ^commission, he will do so; if he has made any valuable 

 experiments upon his farm, which are reliable, that he will 

 return the statistics of those experiments, with illustrations of 

 the crops which he has raised. If it is corn, let him send a 

 sample of that corn. If it is a root-crop, — potatoes, beets, 

 carrots, turnips, or anything else, — let him send samples of 

 them. They shall be carefully preserved in alcohol, if neces- 

 sary, or something else that will be sufficient to keep them 

 throughout the summer. I am very anxious to make an elab- 

 orate and careful collection of all the grasses of Massachusetts, 

 and shall be extremely thankful to gentlemen, if they have it 

 in their power, should they furnish the commission with such 

 specimens of that very important crop of Massachusetts, — the 

 hay-crop. 



Having made these remarks, gentlemen, as briefly as 

 possible, I wish to urge upon all the importance of this 

 exhibition ; and I know that Avhen you return to your homes, 

 you will most gladly aid the commission in every way in 

 your power ; so that when you visit Philadelphia, as you all 

 will, every one of you, with your wives and children, you 

 will be able to point with pride to the agricultural exhibit of 

 Massachusetts as an important and most interesting one. I 



