122 THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY 



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having become, by bequest, the property of Harvard Col- 

 lege, some negotiations were had, initiated, apparently, 

 by the college authorities, looking to a cooperation in 

 scientific education in agricultural matters. This was 

 later attained to in a modified form, whereby the society 

 granted pecuniary aid to this department of college in- 

 struction. In 1864 a series of experiments by the society 

 was completed, in which a careful study was made of 

 several different methods of applying manure, record of 

 the crop obtained by each method being kept. In each 

 experiment, five lots of land, of equal size, were used, and 

 the work was carried through three successive years, with 

 different crops each year. One lot, in each case, had no 

 manure ; and thus its yield served as a minimum, from 

 which the comparative yield, by different methods of ma- 

 nuring, could be measured. The first experiment was 

 begun in 1860, and the third in 1862. About a dozen 

 competitors, in different parts of the State, participated 

 in each instance. The results were tabulated, and pub- 

 lished in pamphlets, by the society, and also in the reports 

 of the Board of Agriculture. The society made awards 

 to the amount of $300, for the best three experiments in 

 each set, or $900 in all. 



In 1863 a report was made by a committee appointed 

 that year to consider the best method of applying the ac- 

 cumulated funds of the society. The recommendation was 

 to import and maintain a breeding stock of horses, adapted 

 to farm work and drayage ; and the Percheron breed, 

 which exists, as stated, in its most perfect form and high- 

 est condition in Le Perche, a district of Normandy, in 

 France, was approved. The report affirmed that this 

 breed would not only be a gain to the agriculturalist, in 

 securing a better class of work-horses for farm use, but a 

 class readily marketable as dray horses and the like, and 

 therefore profitable to a farmer who inclined to breed 

 stock. Incidentally it was remarked that the breeding of 

 horses for high speed does not pay the farmer, " though 



