ADYEETISEMENT. 



Secretary's Office, Boston ; 

 March, 10, 1851. 



The present volume of the Transactions of the Agricultural 

 Societies, will be found in all its essential features much like 

 those that have preceded it. It is more full, however, in many 

 of its details, and large extracts are made from the annual ad- 

 dresses, delivered by the following gentlemen, viz : — 



Mr. Gushing, before the Essex society ; Mr. Boutwell, Mid- 

 dlesex ; Mr. Tracy, Worcester ; Doct. Lee, Hampshire ; Mr. 

 Buckingham, Franklin ; Mr. Russell, Hampden ; Mr. Bullock, 

 Housatonic ; Mr. Adams, Norfolk ; Doct. Jackson, Plymouth. 



All these extracts contain valuable remarks of a general or 

 scientific character, and will be read, it is believed, with much 

 interest. 



The condition of the several societies is doubtless on the whole 

 improving, and they are exerting a beneficial influence on the 

 agriculture of the country. We think it obvious, however, to any 

 one who has become familiar with their " transactions," that there 

 is a great want of uniformity in the mode of testing the yield, 

 weight, &:-c. of animals, and the produce of crops, and of pre- 

 cision and accuracy in other statistics generally. As it now is, 

 for example, there are hardly any two of the societies that test 

 the merits of milch cows in the same way, some requiring their 

 yield in butter or milk for one period, and some for another ; so 

 that, while the animals may be compared with animals of the 

 same county, they cannot be satisfactorily compared with simi- 

 lar animals in other parts of the State ; so too, of the corn crop ; 

 some of the societies measure by cutting up a rod square of 

 corn on the stalks, weighing the corn on the cob, estimating 

 seventy-five pounds to the bushel. By this means an estimated 



