50 THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY 



larity, I decline the future election to the chair of the 

 Society for Promoting Agriculture. 



In taking a respectful and affectionate leave of the 

 Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture, of 

 their trustees, and of the visitors of the professorship 

 of natural history and the botanical garden, I am 

 bound in duty to express the high sense I entertain of 

 the honor done me by repeated elections to their chair, 

 and the gratitude I feel for the pleasure I have had in 

 their conversation in many of the most social and 

 happy days of my life. 



My best wishes attend the members for their health 

 and happiness, and sincere prayers for the promotion 

 and prosperity of agriculture and horticulture in 

 Massachusetts and through the world. 



John Adams. 



To Dr. Aaron Dexter, 



Vice President, etc. 



The period immediately succeeding that now passed 

 in review was prolific in things novel in the way of 

 suggestion, experiment, invention and enterprise. Nor 

 were the earlier subjects neglected. Continued atten- 

 tion was given in the society's publications, or by the 

 offering of premiums, to mulberry cultivation. Much 

 foreboding as to the disappearance, at an early age, of 

 forest trees, was expressed and the cultivation of such 

 trees was urged. The cultivation of wheat was per- 

 sistently clung to, and premiums were paid for extra 

 large crops of that grain. The utility of the ruta baga 

 as compared with turnips of the ordinary kind and 

 with mangel-wurzel was much debated, the first pre- 

 mium for a ruta baga crop having been offered in 

 1819. In 1819 John Prince, of Roxbury, an active 

 member of the society, sent for publication a letter 

 describing a new pest which was infesting apple trees, 



