8 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



we have a soil here that is well adapted to the cultivation of 

 grass. We have a production of grass that, perhaps, is 

 unexcelled in any part of the country, and we have, as con- 

 nected with that, as I have said, the production of beef. Our 

 farmers have had in times past, and have at the present time, 

 the faculty of selecting from the whole region round about, 

 the choicest cattle to be put into their stalls, and they have 

 taken care to improve their opportunities in that regard. 

 They have taken care to have a sufficient supply of those 

 tender, succulent grasses, generally in the form of rowen, 

 with which those cattle are fed, together with such an 

 amount of grain as may be necessary from time* to time. 

 And we have had as a town, as the members of the Board 

 know, who have long been connected with it, or those who 

 have resided in this vicinity, or in the vicinity of Boston, the 

 reputation, as a farming community, for producing, not to say 

 the best of beef, but beef that is unexcelled, I may say, in 

 the market at Brighton. This lias been the case during my 

 observation of forty-four years as a resident of this town. 

 The production of beef has been a source of great profit to 

 our farmers. They have known how to gather the money 

 from this source, and, as a general result, they have made 

 money out of it, and as a general thing, they have known 

 how to take care of that money when they have got it, by 

 investing it in bonds, mortgages, notes and railroad stocks ; 

 and the consequence is, that our farmers who have been 

 beef producers are among the wealthiest persons in the com- 

 munity, and deservedly so. We have an institution among 

 us, founded by the liberality of a gentleman, who, with his 

 father, and perhaps his grandfather, were beef-producers — Mr. 

 Samuel Mather. Our Athenceum was endowed by him dur- . 

 ing his life-time. He has gone to his reward, but his memory 

 still lives in regard to this matter. He was a representative 

 man, like his father before him, of these beef-producers. I 

 might mention other names, but it is not necessary. You 

 will recognize among the names of men here, old names that 

 were known forty, fifty, sixty years ago, as the names of men 

 celebrated as beef-producers, and the men who now bear 

 them are engaged in the feeding of beef. There is one 

 drawback to this matter, perhaps. The production of wheat 



