Preface, 



*' my able and highly respectable coadjutors, ^ For establishing a State Society of 

 ''Agriculture;^ wherein will be found ererj facility for promoting agricull iral 

 "knowledge, scientific as well as practical. Among such facilities was thai of con- 

 <*necti!ig the education ofyoulh with the instruction afforded to «hos»' in advanced 

 **life ; and thus groundn^g the rising generation in the knowh-dge of the most im- 

 "poriant of all arts, while thty are acquiring other useful knowkflg*- suitable for 

 *'the agricultural citizens of the state. This plan was laid bef -rf our the7i Legisla- 

 "ture. Every endeavour was tssed for its adoption ; bui that Legislaturt, nor their 

 '•successors — with whom I faithfully laboured, could be prt-vaileil on to give their 

 "sanction to an arrangement so highly impoitHnt. This plan will be seen in our 

 "first volume of Memoirs. It was printed m a sroall pamphlet and the papers of 

 ••the day ; and had it not been recorded in our volume, would have been lost and 

 "forgotten. I know this to have been the fate of a multitude of (he early I'tei-ary 

 "and practical, and many of them very able, [iroductions of our Society, and its 

 *' members ; which were intrusted to the ephemeial and fugitive promulgations of 

 '•newspapers. This misfortune induced us to collect in volumes, our papers; which 

 ••are in geucral ci;culation and good repute. They nevertheless did great service, 

 •'in laying a foundation on which the present superstructure is built. Although 

 *'our Society wouL' have been merged in a plan so general and superior, we were 

 " content to become hu.uble partakers in its provisions, never having aimed at tak- 

 •« ing the l.ad; but always ready to aid in any plan for promoting the agricultural 

 "and fundi^mental prosperity of our rural fellow citizens. 



•• It is not to be wondered at, howevt r deepl) it is to be regretted, that our State 

 ••legislators Mere thus blind to the interests and comforts of their constituents, when 

 "it is recollected that our great and wise Agriculturist, as well as Statesman, 

 <• — the immortal Washington, — failed in his endeavours to prevail on the na- 

 "tionnl Legislature, to establish a national professorship of Agriculture. This would 

 '• have spread, universallj, a conviction that Science is the handmaid, most essen- 

 " tially administering instruction to the art, which, although the most ancient of all 

 *' others, remains to this day imperfect ; and too much dependant on practical facts, 

 *«and the honest but often mistaken pride of individual performances 5 — too fre- 

 '•quently discordant, and destitute of leading principles to guide in practical results, 

 *'It is devoutly to be wished, that our Legislature would assist in the means of en- 

 *' dowing a professorship, in the most important of all subjects on which science can 

 "be employed. — Important iudeed : — for it is the source from which flows the sub- 

 •' sistence of all other artists, and the origin of the most necessary materials of the 

 " useful arts." 



In another part of the Address, he enumerates the premiums^ 

 and their objects, offered by the Society at its '^^commencement, 

 and still continued. They will appear in our former volumes; 

 and comprehend, for the most part, all the leading subjects now 

 in progress, under the patronage and encouragement of modern 

 associations. *^ pattern farm and a veterinary institution, among 

 those subjects are impressively conspicuous. 



By this enumeration it will appear, that there are few subjects 

 now in agitation among farmers, which have not claimed and 

 received the attention of our Society. Among those subjects, 

 our Successful exertions to obtain the establishment of County 



