AGEICULTUEE AND THE HOESE. 



BY GEORGE B. LORING. 



When, in the early spring of 1864, a large body 

 of the representative farmers of the New-England States 

 assembled at Worcester, in response to my call, for the 

 purpose of organizing the New-England Agricultural 

 Society, it was undoubtedly true that no man of all 

 that enterprising number had any definite idea of the 

 precise object, or of the possible result, of the proposed 

 organization. New England was then, as it is now, 

 full of local and state agricultural societies, all engaged 

 in useful labor. But the suggestion that new energy 

 might be infused into the agricultural community by 

 a new association, in which a broader field might be 

 represented, in which a wider interest might be awa- 

 kened, and in which a larger class of teachers and 

 learners might be gathered together, was enthusias- 

 tically accepted ; while the problem was left to work 

 itself out in its own way. The belief that something 

 might be done, both by investigation and by experi- 

 ment, for the benefit of agriculture, was unanimously 



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