190 BARNSTABLE SOCIETY. 



BARNSTABLE COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The annual meeting Cattle-show and Fair of this society, 

 was held at Barnstable, October 21st, 1847. The weather was 

 delightful, and the gathering of spectators much larger than on 

 any preceding year. The number of animals on exhibition, was 

 nearly double that of any former show. Owing to an unfavor- 

 able season, the exhibition of fruit was not larger than on pre- 

 vious occasions. 



The address was delivered by the president of the society, 

 Hon. John Reed, of Yarmouth. 



On Farms. 



In the performance of their duty, the committee have traveled 

 nearly from one extreme of the county to the other, to examine 

 into the present condition of its agriculture, and note the im- 

 provements which have been adopted in the management of 

 farms, and in the cultivation of particular crops. Though the 

 inhabitants of this county are, as a whole, a commercial people, 

 the committee observed, in all the towns, the evidences of an in- 

 creased interest in rural employments. The old system of plant- 

 ing exhausting crops for successive years, until the diminished 

 products do not repay the labors of the husbandman, now finds 

 few advocates among the observing and the intelligent. 



Very few now plant more land than they can manure, and 

 lay down to grass, in better condition than it was when broken 

 up. More attention is paid to the collecting of materials, and 

 the making of compost manures j to the kinds of crops which 



