30 



members for urging this subject. The same year Mr. Madison wrote, 

 " I have never taken into particular consideration the expediency or 

 the best plan of such an institution, being among those who do not 

 view it as within the powers vested in the General Government." 

 And now what a change ! We have had an Agricultural Department 

 of the National Government in the Patent Office since 1837, or there- 

 abouts, and afterwards what is known as a Commissioner of Agricul- 

 ture ; and during the last winter the Democratic House of Represen- 

 tatives passed a bill establishing an Agricultural Department with a 

 Secretary who was to be a member of the President's Cabinet. What 

 has become of Mr. Madison's constitutional scruples? 



In the Patent Office report for 1847, Mr. Charles L. Fleischmann 

 made the first elaborate report on Agricultural Schools which he had 

 visited abroad. During the last century the earliest Society for pro- 

 moting Agriculture was established in Philadelphia, in 1785, and 

 seven years after, the " Massachusetts Society for promoting Agri- 

 culture," was incorporated, March 7, 1792. The New York Agri- 

 cultural Societ}' was incorporated the following year. I learn that 

 an Agricultural Society was also incorporated in South Carolina dur- 

 ing the last century. 



In 1803 the "Western Society of Middlesex Husbandmen" formed 

 in 1794 was incorporated, with a provision that members of the Mas- 

 sachusetts Society should be honorary members. A voluntary Agricul- 

 tural Association was established at Sturbridge in 1799, one at Ken- 

 nebec in 1791 and one in Brookfield in 1807 ; and some other volun- 

 tary Agricultural Associations had doubtless been formed in New 

 York, and Massachusetts previous to 1807. Meanwhile in 1801, a 

 suggestion was made by an anonymous writer to the Massachusetts 

 Society that a fair be held on Cambridge common in May and Octo- 

 ber, and bounties given for certain articles. This plan was not to 

 have shows merely, but stated open markets for the sale of agricultu- 



NOTE. Among the earlier contributors to agricultural education and interests I should 

 not omit to mention the New York Horticultural Society, organized in 1818, which. was the 

 first society of its kind in the United States ; the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, organ- 

 ized in 1827, and incorporated March 24, 1831. The American Pomological Society, first 

 known as the American Congress of Fruit Growers, was organized in 1848, and the Mass. 

 Horticultural Society in 1829. 



NOTE. Nor do I overlook the great good which the various agricultural journals of the 

 country have done in exciting the interest of the people in agricultual knowledge. I can 

 only mention the " American Farmer," published in Baltimore in 1819, and ever since, 

 which was the first regular agricultural journal published in this country, and the 

 " New England Farmer," which originated in 1822. The later journals are too numerous 

 to mention. 



