400 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the rest of the State 9 cents ; and for their pork 10| cents, 

 against 10 cents elsewhere. 



In 1858 Mr. Henry L. Whitino^ of the United States 

 Coast Survey, and now one of the Harbor Commissioners of 

 Massachusetts, having some years previously bought a farm 

 in West Tisbury, had become impressed, in his official visits 

 to every part of the island, by a belief that with the con- 

 certed action of the farmers in a society receiving the bounty 

 of the State, the possibilities of increasing the agricultural 

 capacity of the Vineyard, having naturally a good soil, and 

 rich in beds of peat, muck, and in the drifting seaweed, 

 might be largely extended. 



Having interested some leading farmers they took the 

 first steps towards providing the necessary funds, and the 

 Martha's Vineyard Agricultural Society was accordingly in- 

 corporated in February, 1859, the necessary land purchased, 

 and a convenient building erected by the following October, 

 when the society held its first cattle-show. The society 

 seems by the returns to have been successful. It has gradu- 

 ally paid off" all its indebtedness, atone time over $2,000 ; it 

 pays annually for premiums entirely within the purview of 

 the law as strictly agricultural, more than it receives from 

 the Commonwealth, and it pays nothing for horse-trotting. 



The morning of Tuesday, October 2, the first day of the 

 Fair, was about as stormy and unpromising a day for a cattle- 

 show as the calendar could show, with a howling south-east 

 wind and a pouring rain. 



Notwithstanding this, which must have kept away many 

 even of these amphibious islanders, to whom water presents 

 few terrors, there was a fair attendance of farmers with their 

 animals. 



Over sixty entries of neat stock were represented by more 

 than seventy head of oxen, cows and young creatures, many 

 of which were very good. The milch cows, with a cross of 

 Ayrshire, and occasionally of Jersey, looked well, consider- 

 ing the very dry condition of the pastures. Two or three 

 yokes of steers were very fine, and would have been credit- 

 able at any fair in the State ; the young cattle, though 

 pinched by the drought and curled up by the pelting storm, 

 were promising looking. 



