342 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Farm Machine Company of Bellows Falls ; the Monitor 

 Churn and Perfect Milk-pail, by the New-York Dairy Supply 

 Company of New York; the Bullard, Victor, Blanchard, 

 and Elmer Churns; and several other implements, as work- 

 ers, presses, packages, &c. Higgins's Eureka Salt was also 

 shown and given away by Thurber & Company of New 

 York. 



The essay, the discussion, and display of implements, were 

 all exceedingly interesting and instructive, and induced 

 much thought and subsequent action among the dairymen. 



After appointing a committee to induce the Fitchburg 

 Railroad to run a refrigerator car from Franklin County to 

 Boston, the Institute adjourned. March 24 it again met, 

 with an attendance of over sixty, to hear, first a pleasant 

 paper from Col. R. H. Leavitt of Charlemont, on " Farming 

 Past and Present," comparing for a half-century the prod- 

 ucts of •the county, the modes of harvesting and preparing 

 them for sale or use, and the modes of marketing. The 

 question discussed at the first meeting, of " the comparative 

 economy of machine or manual labor on small farms" was 

 then brought forward, and thoroughly talked up, and served 

 to bring out facts and opinions on the cost, use, and care of 

 various farm implements and machines. 



It was voted, that, as a basis for the next year's meetings, 

 the president should ask various farmers to keep account of 

 the cost of producing various crops, as beef, pork, mutton, 

 early lambs, and butter, and the value of skimmed milk as 

 feed for calves or pigs. 



The Institute then adjourned to meet the next winter, 

 subject to a call from the president. 



This Institute has been eminently successful, having held 

 five meetings, with an average of seventy members at each, 

 and without any assistance from speakers outside the Insti- 

 tute ; the subject of dairying, including the breeds, feeding 

 and treatment of milch cows, being the leading subject, as 

 most interesting in a county which annually makes a million 

 and a half pounds of butter. 



The talk has been lively, filled with personal experiences, 

 free (among a set of intelligent working-men all familiar 

 with each other, and with the farms and modes of farming 

 of each), with no acrimony, and restrained only by self 



