APPENDIX. xxvii 



farmers of Franklin in their work, but little more, however, than 

 it is ready to do for all others who will use it as kindly and intel- 

 ligently. Agriculture within the limits of this society is unmis- 

 takably progressive, and the State bounty which it annually 

 distributes is being judiciously used to further the good work. 



Having thus written what the honest truth requires in relation to 

 the work of this society, I may be permitted to suggest, that its 

 present condition as to means and intelligence is such, that its 

 influence for good should be extended beyond county limits. The 

 light and knowledge which has exerted such a benign influence on 

 all their handiwork, in one sense belongs to the State. In various 

 forms it should be embodied in their published Transactions and 

 become public property. But such is not the fact. The committee 

 on ploughing was the only one which made a written report, and 

 that was little more than a statement of the fact that such and 

 such ploughs were awarded the premiums. No attempt was made 

 to describe the peculiar merits of different implements, the prin- 

 ciples on which they were constructed, to explain the objects to be 

 attained by ploughing, or whether the ploughs on the ground were 

 capable of accomplishing that object, and if not, in what their 

 deficiency consisted. Now the intelligent gentleman who wrote 

 that report is a most skilful ploughman, thoroughly understands the 

 object of ploughing, and the difference between a good and poor 

 plough, and for the good of those who do not know, he should 

 have embodied a part of that knowledge in his report. So, too, 

 in other departments, the gentlemen who acted as chairmen of the 

 examining committees were themselves adepts in the production 

 of the articles or stock they examined, and yet not one of them 

 seem fit to communicate to the public in a report, the result of his 

 experiments or the information which has made them so successful. 



Among the members of this society, are many gentlemen of intel- 

 ligence, of large experience, whose efforts in improving the soil 

 and their herds of cattle have been eminently successful, — gentlemen 

 who are good thinkers and clear writers ; but the society's Trans- 

 actions are not a medium of conveying their knowledge to other 

 agriculturists of the State. It is to be hoped, that, in the future, 

 the officers of this society will introduce some system by which 

 the intelligence and skill that has produoed such marked results 

 there may be more widely disseminated. 



Levi Stockbeidge. 



