88 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



tance demands. For the information of any who may he in 

 doubt, we would say that of the two pairs of working steers 

 entered as W. E. Beaman's, the third premium was awarded to 

 the pair whose trial came off first. 



In view of the annoyance we experienced, in consideration of 

 the greater duties devolving upon committees on this class of 

 stock, your Committee beg leave to suggest the propriety of 

 allowing the trial of working steers to precede that of working 

 oxen, in future exhibitions. "We also respectfully suggest that 

 the society create an office like that of sergeant-at-arms, and fill 

 it with a committee empowered to compel attendance from 

 owners of stock. 



While wearily traversing up and down the line of " two-year- 

 olds " — those seemingly immobile masses of youthful beef on 

 logs, negligently tethered to the Common-fence — with anxious 

 intent to do full justice to absent competitors, your Committee 

 could not but wish that they had been on the ground to show 

 that the said youthful beeves were not merely reluctantly and 

 awkwardly standing, two by two, for the occasion, but were capa- 

 ble of activities which might help to decide the question of 

 degrees of merit — below the superlative. Of the eight pairs 

 whose owners' names appeared under this class in the entry 

 book, your Committee succeeded in finding but seven, until a 

 few moments before retiring. The missing pair was found in 

 one of the pens ; but unhappily (?) was not of a character to 

 necessitate an alteration of the verdict which your Committee 

 had pronounced on the others. 



Respectfully submitted in behalf of the Committee, 



A. B. Davis, Chairman. 



WORCESTER. 



From the Report of the Committee. 

 There is no one thing at an agricultural fair that excites more 

 interest with the farmers than the trial of working oxen upon 

 the plough as well as the cart. There is a spirit of emulation 

 not found in any other department, or at least not manifest, and 

 there is no one thing so indispensable to the farmer as the ox. In 

 the cultivation of the rugged soil and rocky hills of New Eng- 

 land the ox is the motive power — the most sure and reliable. 

 The ox is one of the indispensable institutions of American 



