FARMS. 8 



dollars — the highest premium — will not produce this effect, 

 probably three hundred would not. Perhaps it is the mortifi- 

 cation of a possible failure that so terrifies some. And it is 

 easily perceived that one man, in the prospect of a glitter- 

 ing premium, might spend all his income, and a great deal 

 more, in improving his farm, while another has no " great deal 

 more" to lay out, and must live out of what he has, if he live 

 at all. Who gets most income from least expense, is the true 

 question. But the farmer of ample means in pursuit of a 

 dazzling premium is cut ofi" in his own judgment l)y such a 

 principle in making awards, while the one of limited means, 

 from the very nature of his circumstances, is precluded from 

 making many of those important improvements which the 

 society wishes to encourage. 



The foregoing considerations may aid the society in deter- 

 mining the question, whether the money lunv oftered tor farm 

 management may not be either appropriated to some other use, 

 or a portion of it expended in visiting farms under superior 

 management, but whose owners, for some reasons, do not ask 

 for the premiums which are now oftered by the society. 



But to argue the subject a little closer, it may be said that if 

 the grand object of the Agricultural Society is to improve the 

 farms in the county of Essex, and premiums both great and 

 small fail of doing it, then an appeal to a certain principle of 

 human nature m^ay at least be tried. The State Board of Edu- 

 cation appealed to it, and that principle responded. When the 

 first Secretary of the Board began his mission among the school 

 districts of the State, and fixed his inquisitorial eye upon the 

 school-houses, the public could not bear his gaze ; and in five 

 short years from the time when the Board of Education made 

 their report to the legislature, on the condition of the school- 

 houses, the sums expended for new houses and repairs upon old 

 ones, fell but little short of $700,000 ; and for several of the 

 years next succeeding, the sum expended upon scliool-houses 

 Avas $150,000 annually. Xow what was the secret of all this 

 change ? Simply that the school-houses of that day could not 

 bear a close inspection. And to apply the moral to the case in 

 hand ; let it be once understood that a committee of this society 

 propose to visit a certain number of farms in a year till all in 

 the county have received a call, unless the owners should posi- 



