No. 4.] BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 391 



THE PAST AND FUTURE OF THE BOARD OF 

 AGRICULTURE. 



BY HON. J. W. STOCKWELL OF SUTTON. 



I shall give no historical sketch of this Board. It lives in 

 its results, not in its years. It asks no veneration for its 

 long life ; it only asks that intelligent meed of praise that 

 its past record compels all to acknowledge who have studied 

 its beneficent course down to the present time, and its 

 greatest encomium is in an intelligent survey of its results. 



" And 'tis a kind of good deed to say well ; 

 And yet words are not deeds ; " 



but in this Board, word and deed, precept and practice, 

 theory and experiment, harmoniously interwrought, have 

 accomplished their best returns to the agriculture of the 

 State. 



No task I ever undertook became so interesting and entic- 

 ing ; it has called up to memory's gaze so many of the good 

 old members, recalling their forms, their words, their looks 

 and their works, till the pen has fallen from my hand ; the 

 essay has been forgotten, and I have been lost to everything 

 but the charm of the delightful reminiscences of the times 

 and associations of the past. 



If my pencil could picture in words a tithe of the tribute 

 of my heart, I would indeed be glad ; as it is, I bring to this 

 grand old Board my last wreath, hoping that in it may be 

 found an immortelle or two, and lovingly place it on the 

 brow of this Massachusetts Board of Agriculture. 



When the morning sun gilds the eastern sky there is no 

 perceptible change observed either in the atmosphere or in 

 nature, and no great change comes at any one moment to 

 mark the influence of the sun's rising ; yet we see gradually 



