34 THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY 



year imported 100 Merino sheep. In accordance with their 

 practice of ignoring State lines in specially meritorious 

 cases, the board voted to him the society's gold medal of 

 $50. At the next monthly meeting after the passage of 

 this vote it was announced that, in October, 1801, a pair 

 of Merino sheep had been imported from France by Seth 

 Adams of Dorchester, Mass. The fact having been verified 

 by a committee, a 150 gold medal was given him. From 

 the year 1814 dates the practice, which has steadily been 

 followed, of importation, by the society itself, of choice 

 breeding animals, this first instance having been from 

 France, of two bulls and two cows of the Alderney, or what 

 is known as the Jersey breed. 



In 1805 the General Court recognized the public utility 

 of the society's endeavors by granting to it a township of 

 six miles square in the district of Maine, in aid of the pro- 

 posed professorship of natural history. While the proceeds 

 of the sale of this tract did not add to the society's per- 

 manent fund it enabled the trustees to ascertain, by a satis- 

 factory test, what practical and direct benefit to agriculture 

 might be derived through science, as applicable in botany 

 and entomology. In 1809 another township was granted 

 to the society on like conditions. This tract appears to 

 have been shared equally by the state of Maine, through a 

 construction of a clause relating to public lands in the act by 

 which Maine was separated from this State. In the con- 

 tract with the college as to the administration of the pro- 

 fessorship it was stipulated by the society that an acre of 

 land should be devoted to raising seeds of culinary vegeta- 

 bles and producing specimens of new and useful grains 

 and grasses. 



In 1813 the society's permanent funds, being the sum of 

 what had been contributed by members, with accrued inter- 

 est, amounted to nearly $ 20, 000. Liberal payments had 

 been made each year in premiums. As early as 1808, the 

 total of annual premiums offered was more than -$1,000. 

 In 1814 the legislature made what is recognized in the 



