No. 4.] AGEICULTUEAL SOCIETIES. 421 



domestic purposes. Horses and wagons are mentioned 

 during the period of the famine, when Jacob and the 

 patriarchs removed into Egypt. At a still later period 

 we find presents of horses being sent into Araljia among 

 the Oriental rulers. In the early part of the eighteenth 

 century, according to historical accounts, the modern race 

 and dray horses were unknown in England, while along 

 towards the latter part of this same century we find England 

 exporting to this country such horses as Diomed, Eclipse, 

 Fearnaught, Messenger, and, at a little later period, Trustee, 

 Leviathan and the beautiful (llencoe. This would seem an 

 impossibility were it not for the f^ict that in tlie early part 

 of the same century three horses were imported into Eng- 

 land, the blood of whom is said to run in the veins of every 

 thorough! )red horse in that country, in the male line. The 

 first of these was Byerly's Turk, the second Darley's Arabian 

 and the third Godolphin Aral)ian. There can be little dou])t 

 of the nativity of the horse l)eing in Africa, and that it is to 

 the Barbs that we are indebted for the foundation of the 

 English thoroughbred horse. 



In 1747 Rev. Dr. Jared Eliot of Killingworth, Conn., 

 published a series of six essays, under the title of " Essays 

 on Field Husbandry, wrote from a Journal of Thirty Years' 

 Experience." In the beginning of his second essay he 

 says: "The last year's essay having met with a more 

 favorable reception than I expected, fifty of the last year's 

 essay having been sent for by B. Franklin, Esq., of Phila- 

 delphia, a person of merit and learning ; being encouraged 

 by him, as also by other gentlemen in these parts, of worth, 

 capacity and learning, on vrhose judgment I depend more than 

 my own ; therefore, agriculture being a profession so useful to 

 mankind, that notwithstanding it hath from the vast variety 

 of depending objects very numerous uncertainties attending 

 it, I shall proceed to make the best of such a difficult subject, 

 in which times and seasons make such great alterations." 

 Knowing his connection with other prominent organizations 

 in Philadelphia, and his interest in these essays, although 

 I have no data to that effect, the inference would be that 

 Benjamin Franklin was one of the prime movers in the 

 organization of the first agricultural society in this country. 



