renewed, it may not be unsuitable to inquire what has been 

 done, and of what advantage to the Commonwealth has it been 

 instrumental 7 



The whole cost of the survey to the State thus far, had it 

 been assessed upon the inhabitants, would scarcely have ex- 

 ceeded a tax of one cent per head ; and this for the advance- 

 ment of the greatest interest of the community, though in 

 many cases the least regarded. Almost all the cost incurred 

 in its prosecution has been expended in the State, and has not 

 gone out of the family. Of the amount (eighteen hundred dol- 

 lars per annum) paid to the Commissioner, nearly two thirds 

 have gone to the actual expenses of the survey ; such as trav- 

 elling charges, payments for information procured, books dis- 

 tributed, seeds and implements purchased for exhibition and 

 gratuitous distribution among the farmers, and for various in- 

 cidentals growing out of the commission. The balance, varying 

 from six to eight hundred dollars, can hardly be considered as 

 an over-compensation for the time and labor devoted to this 

 object. 



The next inquiry is, what has the Commissioner done in the 

 premises 7 Candid minds will not fail to reflect that an Agri- 

 cultural Survey was in this country a novel and altogether un- 

 attempted enterprise ; that the act, by which it was established, 

 was couched in the most general terms ; and that it was left for 

 the Commissioner himself, unaided and unadvised, without 

 chart or pilot, to navigate an untried sea. In respect to most 

 things in life, it is far less difficult, after they have been done, 

 to say how they might have been better done, than before their 

 accomplishment to say how they may be best done, or even 

 how they may be done at all. I ask no exemption from just 



