PEEFACE. 



The returns of the varicms agricultural societies for the past year 

 show an improvement over those of most previous years, though 

 they are still far short of what they should be. The State has 

 manifested not only a large liberality in continuing its bounties for 

 the promotion and encouragement of agriculture, but a striking de- 

 gree of forbearance towards those societies that neglect wholly to 

 comply with the spirit of the law. A portion of the societies are 

 alive to the spirit of the age, and are doing a noble work for the 

 development and improvement of the agricultural and industrial 

 interests of the community. They spare no pains to collect and 

 diffuse information, and to awaken a healthful emulation. 



Another class of societies, though having a name to live, are yet 

 dead, so far as any influence they exert beyond their own limits ; 

 and they might as well be dead so far as anything they do within 

 their limits is concerned. In some respects they do a positive in- 

 jury rather than good. They seem to act on the principle that the 

 sole end and aim of a society is to make a great noise and excite- 

 ment on the day of exhibition, and that their duty to the State and 

 to the community ends here. Their whole management, as it ap- 

 pears through their printed Transactions, is on a low plane wholly 

 unworthy of them. In some instances they go so far as to award 

 premiums and gratuities to men, to satisfy this farmer or that, or to 

 avoid incurring his displeasure, rather than to the animals or arti- 

 cles that really deserve them. Not a few societies are open to this 

 serious charge, and hence many grade or otherwise inferior breeding 

 animals, decorated with the highest honors of the society, go forth 

 to deceive and mislead those who cannot judge of their merit, and 

 take it for granted, as they have a right to, that they would not 



