102 THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY 



pearance as well as in strength, and was named Columbus, 

 The trustees had a portrait of the animal painted, and it 

 was engraved for publication in the Journal. In 182& 

 Admiral Coffin presented the society with a short-horn bull 

 of English breeding, and in the following year, a bull and 

 heifer of the Hereford breed and also a short horn-heifer, 

 with due certificates of pedigree. The short-horn bull wa& 

 named " Admiral," and was successively placed in differ- 

 ent counties of the State, usually in charge of some officer 

 or member of one of the county agricultural societies. 

 This was conformable to the general practice of the society y 

 both prior and subsequently. In 1825 Admiral Coffin gave 

 the society a stallion and mare of the breed known as the 

 Yorkshire Cleveland Bays, much favored in England as 

 roaH horses. In 1827 General Coffin bestowed the gift of 

 four rams and three ewes of the Devonshire Nott breed. 

 One pair of these was sent to the Worcester county society, 

 and one pair to the Hampshire county society. 



These various donations became the occasion of a very 

 interesting episode in the proceedings at the Brighton cattle- 

 show in 1827, in the course of an address made by the 

 president of the society at that time, Hon. John Lowell, 

 preliminary to announcing the premiums. General Coffin 

 was present, as a guest of the day. President Lowell, hav- 

 ing in his remarks led up to an enumeration of the various 

 gifts which had thus been received by .the society, said, with 

 special reference to the latest gift of the sheep : 



General Coffin, not content with purchasing them, has, at 

 an age above three score years and ten, followed them 

 through their long passage to New Brunswick, and thence, 

 without delay, from Eastport to Boston, in order that they 

 might grace the show of the society on this anniversary. 

 He is now present at our festival. There is no feeling 

 stronger than that of an attachment to the country in 

 which we are born. Time and distance have no effect, un- 

 less it be in making the feeling more intense. I know of 

 no case more touching, none in which the strength of that 

 natural feeling has been more strongly exemplified than in 

 that of these two brothers, who, separated from their coun- 



