18 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



was a time, indeed, when they were purely agricultural, and 

 we were largely manufacturing ; we sold them our manufac- 

 tures, and bought their breadstuffs, and there was a reciprocal 

 benefit in it. But they buy less and less in proportion to their 

 population, continually, but we have to buy more and more 

 from them, for the habit has grown upon us, and we do not 

 raise our own breadstuffs. Massachusetts must pay twenty- 

 five or' thirty millions annually for breadstuffs. I have shown 

 • you that you can raise wheat in Massachusetts ; and if every 

 farmer would lay down a single acre to wheat, and let it go 

 into his rotation, it would save a great deal of money to the 

 State. There seems to be no difficulty in doing it. There is a 

 gentleman before me who has raised here in Concord some of 

 the whitest and finest wheat that has been seen anywhere, and 

 he does not find any difficulty in doing it on our light soil. If 

 we are to go into an intelligent cultivation of the soil, which is 

 the real basis of scientific agriculture, it seems to me a necessity 

 that we should raise our own breadstuffs. 



With these few remarks, which only the necessity of the case 

 has called forth, I ask you to nominate a chairman for this 

 afternoon. 



Dr. George B. Loring, of Salem, was nominated as Chair- 

 man, and the Board took a recess, until 2 o'clock, P. M. 



AFTERNOON SESSION. 



The Board was called to order at the hour appointed by 

 the Chairman, the topic assigned for discussion being Cattle 

 Husbandry. 



The Chairman. I have been requested to preside this after- 

 noon, gentlemen, and I am sorry to say, that one object in 

 making the selection, according to the declaration of the com- 

 mittee, was, that I might open the debate on Cattle Husbandry. 

 Some one said, after a long debate at one of the finest agricul- 

 tural exhibitions ever held in New England, — the discussions 

 at which some of you may remember, — that the fault of the 

 chairman was, that he talked too much ; that he did not know 

 how to run an agricultural exhibition, because he was too much 

 given to talk. I do not know but that may be the case ; the 



