292 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



States. The President can call to his assistance his chosen 

 advisers, but the farmer, isolated and alone, must depend on 

 himself." These sentiments, uttered a half-century ago, 

 have much force at the present time. With exhausted soils, 

 Western competition, scarcity of farm labor, narrow margin 

 of farm profits, heavy real estate taxes, to grow and harvest 

 the crops, feed and dispose of them the most profitably, care 

 for the stock during the winter months, and economize labor 

 pertaining to every branch of the farming, requires a large 

 amount of study and calculation. It is true the Massachu- 

 setts farmer may call to his assistance the Agricultural Col- 

 lege and Experiment Station, to develop science, which is 

 power, whether applied to machinery or agriculture, to teach 

 and explain its adaptations, which will aid him theoretically ; 

 yet, to apply this power successfully to practical agriculture, 

 he will have to do a good deal of brain work. 



With thirty-four societies, receiving bounty from the 

 State, and that bounty being the main dependence of several 

 of them for their support, and with the tendency to further 

 increase the number, it is a subject worthy of consideration 

 whether more additions can be made without impairing the 

 usefulness of some already established. The division and 

 increasinof of school districts in the Commonwealth a few 

 years ago, to make the schools more easy of access, in a 

 few years worked the destruction of the district system. 

 But, as a better school system was adopted, so perhaps in 

 the near future some of the weaker agricultural societies 

 may merge and consolidate their organizations, and good 

 will result from so doing. Experience has pretty well 

 demonstrated, that a territory of not less than twenty 

 miles, extending either way from the central place where 

 the show and fair is held, is necessary to sustain a society 

 in a good, healthy, working condition. Societies start 

 vigorously, jflourish for a time, reach maturity as it were, 

 remain stationary for a time, then begin to languish and 

 decline. The society, instead of examining its manage- 

 ment, to ascertain the cause of the diminished interest of 

 the public, manifested by the non-attendance at the shows, 

 resort to attractions foreign to the purposes for which the 

 shows and fairs were instituted, which may meet perhaps 



