FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE 29 



cider; the best method of making maple sugar, and 

 for butter, cheese, flax and salted provisions. It was 

 voted that those obtaining the highest premium might 

 at their option have the society's gold medal, suitably 

 inscribed. The medal had for its device, the seal of 

 the society on one side, and engraved on the reverse 

 these words— "Presented to (A B ,) 1796." 



In April, 1793, at the meeting of the society a vote 

 was passed looking to an encouragement of the forma- 

 tion of county societies for promoting agriculture. 



The trustees in February, 1794, appointed a com- 

 mittee "to consider the expediency of procuring a 

 piece of ground for the purpose of agricultural experi- 

 ments." This project ultimately took a somewhat 

 different shape and led to the establishment of the 

 Botanical Garden at Cambridge, in conducting which 

 the society for some years cooperated with the college. 

 At the April meeting of 1794, an analysis was ordered 

 of a specimen of earth, said to be marl and of value as 

 a fertilizer. In the following October a report was 

 made by Dr. Cotton Tufts to the effect that by tests 

 with four different acids, and with spirits of ammonia, 

 the earth had no chemical affinity with vegetable or 

 mineral acids, and so was worthless for the purpose 

 named. In July, 1794, a letter from Dr. J. C. Lettsom 

 of London, Eng., was read expressing his appreciation 

 of having been chosen as an honorary member and 

 enclosing a draft for ten guineas, which he desired 

 should be applied in the society's work in the direction 

 of natural history.* 



* John Coakley Lettsom, M.D., was a physician of extensive practice 

 in London, a man of versatile mind and general scientific attainments 

 and a writer of repute on various subjects outside of those pertaining to 

 his profession. He was a personal friend of Dr. Benjamin Franklin. 

 He was interested in agriculture, and it ia recorded of him that he was 

 the first to introduce the mangel-wurzel into England, about the year 

 1773. He was born in 1744; died in 1815. 



