274 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. 



very important part of the " Transactions." Such are the Reports 

 of certain Committees, at the State Fairs. These reports had been 

 prepared with great labor and care, and yet were thrown out to make 

 room for other matter which had no proper place in these volumes ; 

 and these reports we regard — ignorantly perhaps — as essential 

 portions of the Transactions of this Society. 



We ask the reader to turn to the following articles, as we specify 

 them from a mere hasty examination of these books. 



In the volume for 1843, page 241, we find a paper occupying 86 

 pages, with this title : " The Geological Survey of New-York, its 

 influence upon the productive pursuits of the community." We 

 shall speak more at large of this paper under another head. We 

 only introduce it here as belonging to this head also ; for we have 

 the best of reasons for saying, that till this paper was seen in this 

 volume, it was a stranger to the Transactions of the Society. We 

 shall give Mr. O'Reilly's apology for this article farther on. 



In the volume for 1844, page 61, is found an article entitled 

 " Analysis of Soils," by Willis Gaylord ; and page 1 18, one entitled 

 " Rotation versus Summer Fallowing," by the late Willis Gaylord. 



Now let not Senex charge us with slandering the dead, as he 

 charged us with attacking Mr. Bancroft. We are saying nothing 

 now of the late Mr. Gaylord, although we might find fault with 

 some things in his papers ; but it is with the book containing his 

 articles, we have now to do. The compilers of the book say, in a 

 note to the first article, " This paper was one of the last produc- 

 tions of the late Willis Gaylord, and was found on his table imme- 

 diately after his death, which occurred on the 27th of March, 1844," 

 etc., and then it is engrafted on the Transactions of N. Y. S. Ag. 

 Soc. Now why are they here ? Is it replied, that although they did 

 not belong to the society, yet they may be useful to the farmer, and 

 are therefore published here ? The same excuse might be applied 

 in the case of Loudon's Encyclopedias, or Liebig's works, or John- 

 ston's, or Boussingaull's, or an}^ of the writers on agriculture, in- 

 cluding the Cultivator, the Agriculturist and the American Quarterly 

 Journal of Agriculture and Science, particularly the latter. But still 

 farther : 



On pages 210, 243, 255, are long extracts from the transactions 

 of the agricultural meetings held during the preceding winter in 

 the city of Albany. Why not give some from the Farmer's Club in 



i 



