YALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 171 



ligation. The object to be gained is the personal interest of 

 members in the club, and especially of all good farmers, and 

 the full accomplishment of the legitimate ends of the associa 

 tion. The Farmers' Club was held to be the most important 

 means of educating a class of energetic and intelligent farmers, 

 to whom may be intrusted the affairs of the State and County 

 Agricultural Societies. 



The County Society should be made up of the Farmers' 

 Clubs, and the two classes of organizations should work harmo 

 niously .together, each doing its own work. A more definite 

 organization is needed officers elected for one year at least, 

 a vice-president, or director, being chosen from each town by 

 the Farmers' Club of the town. The fairs were shown to be 

 a chief means of carrying forward the objects of these societies, 

 and also the great desirableness of, and the great difficulty of 

 securing the services of fair, honorable, intelligent, reasonable 

 men to act as Awarding Committees. The cure for the state of 

 things now commonly existing lies in first offering fewer pre 

 miums, and increasing their value,,; second, allowing no discre 

 tionary premiums, or gratuities, to be given in classes in which 

 regular prizes are offered ; third, insisting that the award shall 

 represent the accurate estimation of the committee of the 

 worthiness of the animal, or article, without regard to the en- 

 couragement or reward of the owner for making the exhibition ; 

 fourth, thro wing the whole of the responsibility of making a cor 

 rect judgment upon the committee, and securing the fairest and 

 best men. Offering prizes for articles of no agricultural use 

 or importance, as well as making balloon shows, ladies' riding- 

 matches, &c., were condemned as undignified and unworthy of 

 an Agricultural Association. 



State Societies should as most do depend upon the county 

 organizations, as these in turn do upon the clubs; and their 

 management is much the same only upon a larger scale. Mu 

 seums of all things of an agricultural bearing, implements, 

 grasses and grains, seeds, models, &c., and libraries of home 



