9 



then composing that little, yet important body, surviving others who 

 have passed to their final rest, I count now before me a few still ac- 

 tive and prominent members from that day to this, honored mean- 

 time with its highest confidence, and conferring valuable benefits on 

 their fellow men. Yet torpid, comparatively, as was the action of 

 this body, and obliged to give utterance to its proceedings, save thro' 

 the political papers, which took no interest in its labors, through the 

 then feebly supported agricultural papers at New- York and Roches- 

 ter, the creation of the State Society rapidly awakened an interest in 

 different sections of the State ; and in less than two years from its 

 formation, five or six county societies were organized. In 1833, ap- 

 plication was made by the Society to the Legislature, for a law mak- 

 ing a public appropriation of money for the promotion of Agriculture, 

 and a report was made thereon in the Assembly by Mr. AVERY SKIN- 

 NER, of the county of Oswego. But our Legislature were too deeply 

 engaged in the exciting process of creating corporations to listen to 

 the modest petitions, or devote their time to the welfare of the far- 

 mer, and the application fell stillborn before them. 



Cheered on, however, by the brightening indications abroad, the 

 Society resolved to hold a State cattle show at Albany, in October of 

 that year, and a very creditable display of superior stock, farm pro- 

 ducts and implements was made ; but controlling no funds where- 

 with to award premiums, it was not successfully repeated during its 

 then existing organization. 



In 1834, the Society resolved on the publication of a paper in Al- 

 bany, devoted to the Agricultural interest, and the " Cultivator" was 

 established, with JESSE BUEL as its conductor. This movement gave 

 at once an impulse to the cause, and awakened public attention to the 

 long dormant subject of agricultural improvement. 



Late in 1835, a call numerously signed by gentlemen from differ- 

 ent parts of the State, connected with the Society, was made through 



