36 THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY 



with a peculiarly constructed harrow, were passed 

 upon. 



In an award in this line there is a special manifesta- 

 tion of comity with reference to the newly formed 

 Sturbridge Agricultural Society. The trustees say, 

 that while the writer of the essay "does not propose an 

 entirely new method, yet in consideration that it has 

 borne the test of experience, and being attested by a 

 respectable agricultural society in the county of 

 Worcester, it is adjudged a premium." At the last 

 meeting in December, 1799, the trustees issued the 

 printed list of forty-nine questions to which President 

 Lowell referred in remarks already quoted. The pur- 

 pose of these was to learn, through the widest inquiry 

 possible, the actual condition of agriculture through- 

 out the State, both as respects improvements made 

 and defects existing, with intention that by subsequent 

 circulation of information, remedies for the latter 

 might be suggested. 



The affairs of this early period have been presented 

 somewhat more fully and minutely than is contem- 

 plated in narrating the later history, wherein a state- 

 ment of the more significant and conspicuous facts 

 will suffice, and will bear like testimony. What has 

 been given certifies to the zeal, diligence, liberality of 

 spirit and breadth of view with which the society be- 

 gan its work; that almost from the beginning a per- 

 ceptible impression was made upon the minds of the 

 more intelligent part of the community, and tended 

 thus towards a revival of agriculture; and that in 

 starting little riils of influence, which later broadened 

 into streams that yet beneficently flow, the "theoreti- 

 cal farmers" were in fact a very practical sort of men. 



