FOB PROMOTING AGRICULTUBE. 121 



Voted, that the secretary of the State Board of Agri- 

 culture be informed, with a request that he will inform- 

 also the Executive, that, in consideration of the present 

 condition of this country, this society will not this year 

 call for the annual bounty of $ 600 furnished by the State. 



The war had begun, and the trustees felt that the 

 State's money was more needed for her soldiers- at the 

 front, than it was needed for the society's work in Massa- 

 chusetts. On Oct. 18 of the same year, the following was- 

 adopted by the board. 



Voted, to invest $1500, now in the hands of the treas- 

 urer, in the seven-thirty loan of the United States. 



The latter vote might not seem to signify much to read- 

 ers whose memory does not reach back to the trying 

 experiences of the civil war ; or, in ignorance of the facts, 

 it might seem only to mean that a prudent investment 

 was made at a good rate of interest. But the prophets of 

 evil were many in those days, though fewer, indeed, in 

 this, than some other northern states. Such decried the 

 ability of the government to fulfill its promises of money 

 payment ; predicted that the war would end in ruin of the 

 national credit, and, with special reference to currency 

 notes, or " greenbacks," declared that the time would 

 soon come, when a farmer would not be willing to ex- 

 change his load of wood for greenbacks, cord for cord." 

 It argued the possession of patriotic feeling as well as 

 cool judgment, at the point of time named, to invest in- 

 government securities. The trustees were men of that 

 stamp, and no doubt felt, besides, that it would be action in 

 the direction of the society's mission to contribute, in this 

 way, to sustain the government, under whose triumphant 

 sword, only, could the arts of peace be expected to flour- 

 ish. Investments in national securities to the amount of 

 $7,000, or more, were made subsequently, to which the 

 precise comment might be less applicable ; for as the war 

 progressed, the panicky feeling subsided. During the con- 

 tinuance of the war the annual state bounty was declined. 



In 1861, the Bussey Farm, so called, at West Roxbury, 



