320 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



was always the wise counselor of the farmer; and we part with its "old familiar face " with' 

 sincere regret — ree;rct that we shall receive its visits no more, and regret that, in the rage for 

 new things, it should have been so far forgotten as to afford Mr. Breck. by whom it has been 

 conducted with great judgment, so poor a reward as to induce him, as a matter of interest, to 

 discontinue its publication. 



IMPORTED STOCK. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE STOCK RECENTLY IMPORTED BY THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY 

 FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE. 



BY E. PHINNEY, ESQ. A TRUSTEE OF THE SOCIETY. 



The Trustees, with an honest desire of promoting the interests of Agriculture and improve- 

 raent in the various branches of rural economy, had, for many years, devoted the mcome of 

 the Society's funds to premiums on the best cultivated farms, on the various kinds of farm 

 produce, farm stock, and to such other objects as they believed best calculated to promote 

 the interest of the great body of fai-mers. Of the effect of their labors, the public can the 

 best judge. 



It seemed to the Trustees that very little progress had been made, particularly in the dairy 

 stock of the comitiy . They could point to no particular object, no decided mark of improve- 

 ment or penxianent change, upon ^vllicll the future and progressive improvement of our dairy 

 etock could, with any certainty, be calculated.* 



Thousands of dollars have been offered and awarded in premiums for the best mUch cows 

 within the Commonwealth, during the hist twenty years, and, as appejired to the Trustees, 

 to very little benefit. Whoever has attended our cattle shows will have occasionally met 

 ■with a cow remarkable for her milkmg properties, which the forbmate ownier purchased 

 from some drove. This accidctital co\v is exhibited at the cattle show ; well authenticated 

 proofs of her great yield of milk or butter are produced ; the owiier takes the highest piize, 

 and jjuts the money into his pocket ; the calf is sold to the butcher ; and the cow the next 

 year is put uito the beef barrel. And tliis has Ijeen the begimiing and the end of most of the 



* We cannot, in justice to our own feelings, let pass an occasion so appropriate, without using 

 it to express our sincere thanks, as an humble friend of American Agriculture, for the great ser- 

 vices which have been rendered to its cause by the Tnistees of this ancient and most respectable 

 Association. 



The propriety, not to say the demand, for this special acknowledgment will be better under- 

 stood by the few readers who were in the habit, as we were more than twenty years ago, of 

 noting their proceedings with a heartfelt interest in everything connected with the great subject 

 of American Agriculture. 



In all their dissertations and plans there was evinced a degree of sincere, intellectual, earnest 

 devotion, which was calculated not merely to convey and to elicit practical knowledge 

 and details on particular points, but to cause the best men of the land to think and to reason, as 

 all men should learn to do who desire to understand, to influence, and to meliorate their condition 

 in life, morally and politically. 



Nobody can look back through their ancient archives without admiration and cordial union in 

 the sentiment of gratitude to such men. But whore is the token of public esteem and remem- 

 brance — where the legislative resolves of thanks and of medals — for these truly useful patriots — 

 the Pickerings, the Cluincys, the Lowells, the Parsonses, the Jaqueses, and a host of patriotic 

 colleagues, whose thoughts and lives have been given to finding out and pointing out how more 

 light and fruitfulness could be shed on the course of the ploic ? 



Some French epicure has said that he who discovers a new dish confers more happiness on the 

 human race than he who discovers a new star ! — and, truly, our American men of influence, in 

 and oat of power, are far more ready to shower honors and fortune on the blood-stained conquer- 

 or, than to say " well done ! " to those who have taught, however successfully, the arts of peace 

 and the principles of true liberty. 



What notice would a Republican Congress, represenlins the agricultural interest of the U. 

 States, take of a man who should discover an eflcctual antidote to the Hessian fly, or a new fer- 

 tilizer, ten thousand times morC' concentrated and more powerful than even plaster or guano ? — 

 The same that they have done of poor Fitch, or Rumsey, or Fulton, or Clinton, or Whitney, or 

 Buel, or Lowell ! So gua the world .' but u-f arc u wise, a u-vudcrl'iil people.' ! [Ed. F. Lib. 

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