FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE 37 



Steady progress on the lines already indicated was 

 made by the society during the early years of the 

 present century and the board of management showed 

 special activity and enterprise in widening the field of 

 usefulness. Improvements in farming methods and 

 apparatus received prompt and cordial recognition, 

 and instances occurred where premiums were awarded 

 to persons living out of the State. No premiums were 

 given on patented articles, but recommendation of 

 such v/as made, when deserved, in the official publica- 

 tions. The first year of the century brought out a 

 suggestion, which, though not immediately acted upon, 

 was frequently discussed and gradually gained favor, 

 namely, that it would be an effective encouragement 

 to farming industry to establish near Boston an annual 

 or semi-annual cattle fair. When the idea took shape 

 in 1816, it was not as a cattle fair but a cattle show. 

 The original proposal was to bring together farming 

 animals and other products for sale on the spot, as 

 well as for competition for premiums. 



Considering the success and manifest utility which 

 have since characterized exhibitions of this kind it 

 might seem, at first glance, that the board of manage- 

 ment was overcautious, or lacked insight as to what 

 would be a popular and taking thing. To judge rightly 

 in this as in many other matters wherein the society 

 took action during the first forty years, the vast differ- 

 ence of circumstances then and now must be taken 

 into account. In the instance here referred to it is to 

 be remembered that thirty years were to elapse be- 

 tween the date of the suggestion and that of the first 

 railroad. It is easy now to assemble great throngs of 

 people and entertain them with ocular proofs of 

 superior farming drawn from a wide spread territory. 

 But in 1801 an exhibition at Cambridge or Brighton 



