306 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



was then fed on hay and a few carrots until about the first of 

 May ; she lias since run in a pasture liaving nothing but grass. 

 The heifer, four months old, is half Alderney and half native, 

 from a cow formerly owned by the late Hon. Daniel Webster, 

 and now owned by J. W. Paige, Esq., of Boston. She was 

 calved on the fifth day of June, and run eight weeks with a far- 

 row cow, since which time she has run in a pasture and had 

 nothing but grass. 



LOT>ELL, 1853. 



To the Trustees of the MassacJni setts Society for Promoting 



Agriculture. 



Gentlemen : — In a communication which I have just re- 

 ceived from the Hon. E. R, Hoar, late president of the Mid- 

 dlesex Agricultural Society, he informs me that he had a con- 

 versation some weeks ago with one of the members of your 

 Board, in regard to the mode in which the State Society 

 could best promote agricultural improvement through the 

 agency of the county societies ; and that he then suggested, 

 that if the trustees of the State Society had funds which they 

 could spare for the purpose, it might be well for them to divide 

 the State into districts, perhaps four in number ; the western 

 counties one, Worcester and Norfolk one, the southern counties 

 one, and Essex and Middlesex the fourth ; that should the sum 

 appropriated admit of it, $150 should be offered in each district 

 as premiums for the best dairy of cows, not less than six in 

 number, which should have been owned for five months previous 

 to the cattle show by the exhibitor, divided into three premiums 

 of $75, $50, and $25, open to competition to any person in 

 either of the counties composing the district, and offering it in 

 Middlesex this year, and in Essex next, or vice versa, and in 

 like manner in each of the other districts. 



In case the funds of the society would admit of offering only 

 $100 to each district, in premiums of $50, $30, and $20, or in 

 two premiums of $G0 and $40, it might be proportionably useful. 



The foregoing plan presents a mode of offering premiums, 

 which, if not entirely new, has been adopted only to quite a 

 limited extent by any of our agricultural societies. The object 



