346 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Voted, To appoint a committee to consider and report upon 

 the reply to be made to to the questions. Messrs. Holhmd, 

 Milo J. Smith and Had wen. 



Mr. Holland subsequently submitted the following re- 

 port : — 



Concerning the questions submitted by the Essex Agricult- 

 ural Society to this Board, the Committee would say, that in 

 their opinion the term pure bred is regarded by intelligent 

 breeders and the public generally as applying to such animals 

 only as have been so bred that they can transmit with certainty 

 their peculiar qualities to their oflspring. 



The proof that an animal is so bred should be a record of 

 the animal, or its ancestors, as recorded in some herd-book, 

 recognized by leading breeders and the public generally as 

 complete and authentic. 



The report was accepted, when the Board adjourned. 



It seems proper to allude briefly, in this connection, to the 

 origin and growth of associated eff"ort for the promotion and 

 development of the agricultural industries of this Common- 

 wealth. Starting from comparatively small beginnings in 

 the organization of the Massachusetts Society for promoting 

 Agriculture, in 1792; the Association of Middlesex Husband- 

 men, formed in 1794, and incorporated in 1803, under the 

 name of the Western Society of Middlesex Husbandmen; the 

 Kennebeck Agricultural Society, instituted at Augusta, then 

 a part of Massachusetts, in 1800, and incorporated in 1801 ; 

 the Berkshire Coimty Society, in 1811 ; the Essex, the 

 Worcester, the old Hampshire and the Plymouth, in 1818 and 

 1819 ; the munber of these societies has rapidly increased 

 till they exceed thirty, receiving a bounty from the Common- 

 wealth. 



The State Board of Aijriculture was the natural out«rrowth 

 of these societies. It is not a corporate body or society, but 

 a department of the government, organized like any other 

 department, with His Excellency the governor, for the time 

 being, as its head. It is composed mainly of farmers, and 

 wholly of men chosen by and to represent farmers, with the 



