INTRODUCTION. 11 



active part, proved to be the most valuable part of the pro 

 ceedings of this convention. 



We proceed to a few remarks, suggested by the experience 

 of the late course, as to the kind and degree of benefit which 

 may be expected from similar conventions in the future. 



In the first place, it is obvious that their usefulness is to be 

 found by no means exclusively or even rjrincipally, in the nov 

 elties in agricultural science or practice which are likely to be 

 presented in the lectures. Every important discovery in agri 

 culture finds its way, of necessity, into the agricultural journals, 

 and through the newspaper press becomes the property of the 

 country. In addition to this, every important subject on agri 

 culture or horticulture is presented in books especially devoted 

 to the purpose, which the cultivator may study at his leisure 

 without the necessity of leaving his home. These facts might 

 seem at first view to do away with all necessity for such gath 

 erings. They do not influence us, however, to hesitate in the 

 least in declaring them among the most efficient means in ex 

 istence for promoting agricultural progress. 



On the benefits to the experienced cultivator it is unneces 

 sary to dwell. Agricultural, horticultural, and stock-breeding 

 conventions have come to be common and popular, and it is 

 already established by experience that they subserve many im 

 portant purposes which are unattainable by other means. The 

 statement of numerous individual experiences in such a conven 

 tion, will frequently show in an hour on which side the balance 

 of testimony lies, and so decide in a brief session questions 

 which have been the subject of a newspaper war of months. 

 A brisk fire of questions will often annihilate, in a few minutes, 

 the carefully guarded statement which has served as the pro 

 tection of some cherished error, and so expose, by a single at 

 tack, the fatally weak point of some plausible theory, which 

 might have been perpetuated in print for years. 



Often, also, out of a chaos of seemingly inconsistent testimony 

 there will crystallize by the aggregation of individual experi- 



