REPORTS 



TO THE 



STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Beginning with the year 1885 the Society has elected a member 

 of the State Board of Agriculture, and has performed such other 

 acts as were necessary to entitle it to the bounty of the State, and 

 the Board has appointed a member to report on the exhibitions 

 and other work of the Society. It having been suggested that the 

 report for the year 1887 should be printed in the Transactions of 

 the Society, the Committee on Publication have not only approved 

 that suggestion, but have determined to publish also the two 

 previous reports, as follows : 



REPOKT FOR 1885. 



By Hon. JAMES S. GRINNELL, of Greenfield. 



I was appointed from this Board to report on the Massachusetts 

 Horticultural Society, and have attended its shows of fruits, flow- 

 ers, and vegetables, and some of its weekly meetings, most inter- 

 esting in the display of practical results, and in the exposition of 

 scientific theories and of experimental work. 



The fact that this Society had never until last year, when under 

 the presidency of Mr. John B. Moore, allied itself with the State 

 Board of Agriculture, and has never before been represented here 

 by a delegate or b}' a report, justifies me in giving for the infor- 

 mation of those who arc not of its membership, a brief sketch of 

 its origin and early history. The first production from the soil 

 which our forefathers found when they landed on the cheerless 

 sliore of Massachusetts Bay, except the leafless forest trees of 

 December, was some seed of that noble plant, the maize, which 

 not only saved their lives, but which in all succeeding generations 



