by the managers, containing much useful matter ; but from the ab- 

 sence of that practical management only to be obtained through an 

 experience in the daily routine of agricultural affairs, and a failure to 

 enlist the affections of the farmers generally in the operations and 

 proceedings of the local societies, the necessary interest flagged in 

 their support, and after a few exhibitions, most of them expired a 

 natural death, while but few survived their legal probation. The 

 State patronage expired by its own limitation ; the volumes of " Me- 

 moirs" lay uncalled for in the offices of the different county clerks, 

 and the Albany " Plough Boy " engulphed in politics, died out by 

 its own inanition. 



Thus passed the agricultural action of 1819 through to 1825. 

 And although many wise, benevolent, and active men were engaged 

 in promoting the immediate welfare of the agricultural community 

 by efforts to excite their own self-improvement, the farming interest 

 was not sufficiently alive to profit as it ought by either the State 

 bounty, or those individual efforts. The law had become odious and 

 unpopular ; mainly because the recipients of that bounty knew not 

 how to use it ; and agriculture sunk again to the dull monotony of 

 its former labors, and was left to individual improvement as occasion, 

 accident, or private enterprise should determine. Still, this measure 

 effected great good. Numerous instances of decided progress became 

 manifest under the stimulus of competition at the different county 

 cattle shows ; and men of wealth, attached to agricultural interests, 

 and of other professions became active promoters of improvement in 

 various departments of husbandry. It was under the stimulating in- 

 fluences of that law that your late distinguished fellow citizens Ru- 

 FUS KING imported the Devon, and STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER, the 

 Short Horn cattle from England into this State. Other importations 

 of domestic animals were made by different parties, the stock of 



