ABSTEACT. 



MASS. SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE. 



The President and Secretary of the Massachusetts Society 

 for Promoting Agriculture, respectfully report, in obedience to 

 the requisitions of the Legislature, that on an examination of the 

 records of the board of trustees for the year past, it appears, 

 that their exertions in the cause of agriculture, continue con- 

 centrated on the objects stated in their former reports, for the 

 four preceding years, that of introducing and distributing the 

 best breed, or breeds of milking cows, those which have been, 

 and are most esteemed, after the test of many years, by the 

 best farmers in England. Their object has been so far accom- 

 plished as to offer to each county society, one bull and one 

 cow, or heifer calf of the full blood, of either the Ayrshire, or 

 the North Devon breed. The farmers of each county society, 

 which has been willing to make the experiment, are, or will be 

 furnished, free of expense, with a male and female of the same 

 breed, Ayrshire or Devon, as may have been appropriated to 

 them, or may have been selected by them. If it be in the 

 spirit of farmers to preserve a breed untnixed, an opportunity 

 is given to each society, or fountain head, so to distribute them, 

 as that, in a few years, they may give a character to the stock 

 of their respective counties. 



The records also, express the sense of the board, at the loss 

 sustained by the friends of agriculture, as well as by the commu- 

 nity in general, in the death of their late associate, Elias Phin- 

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