330 BRISTOL SOCIETY. 



has scarcely been attempted. Greater improvements are at 

 once demanded here, if we would aspire to keep pace with the 

 other societies in the State. As a means of advancement, were 

 I permitted to suggest, I would recommend that agricultural 

 clubs or societies should be formed in the different towns in 

 the county. They would, it is believed, tend alike to stimu- 

 late the great interest of agriculture, and to swell the ranks of 

 this society. They would afford profit and amusement ; in 

 them the young and the old would assemble, and freely discuss 

 the various subjects connected with their department of in- 

 dustry. 



Much might also be done by still greater efforts to improve 

 the stock of the county, and still more by the establishment of 

 an agricultural library by this society, for the benefit of all its 

 members. Such a library would be a public benefit. In it 

 would be preserved the annual reports of the societies, the best 

 works on agriculture, and the agricultural literature of the day, 

 so that all the best authors on any given subject might be read- 

 ily consulted by any one who should wish to avail himself of 

 an opportunity. If established, it should be free to every 

 member, and thus one of the important objects of the society 

 would be accomplished, in the dissemination far and wide of 

 agricultural knowledge." 



By the acts of the royal commissioners of 1741, a part of the 

 ancient county of Bristol, comprising the Gore, and the towns 

 of Little Compton, Tiverton, Bristol, Barrington, and a part of 

 Swansey, appropriately denominated, " the Garden of the old 

 Colony," were unjustly separated from Massachusetts, and by 

 the subsequent arbitrary decree of the king and council, an- 

 nexed to Rhode Island, in 1746. But notwithstanding Bristol 

 county was then despoiled of a part of her most valuable territo- 

 ry, she has made vast strides of improvement within the last 

 hundred years. She has now within her limits one beautiful 

 city, — New Bedford, — and eighteen flourishing towns. It is true 

 that some of the soil in the interior is rather sandy and sterile, 

 and that some of it, like that of New Hampshire, abounds in 

 rocks ; yet taken as a whole, it is luxuriant. For the beauty of 

 her scenery, the salubrity of her atmosphere, the energy and 



