266 ADDRESS. 



benefits of the expenditure, that an increased spirit is an- 

 nually manifested, by all classes, to maintain and perpet- 

 uate these nurseries of industry and improvement. 



The Highland Society of Scotland affords another il- 

 lustrious example of the utility of agricultural associations, 

 when conducted with a view to public improvement. 

 This society was organized in 1784, but so few were its 

 members, and so limited its means, that it attracted but 

 little public notice, nor effected any great improvement 

 in husbandry, till the commencement of the nineteenth 

 century. Yet it had sown the good seed which never 

 fails, under proper management, to yield to the husband- 

 man a bountiful harvest. Nor did it fail in this case. 

 The society now numbers twenty-two hundred members, 

 embracing most of the opulent and influential men of the 

 country, of all professions, and distributes annually in 

 prizes, about seventeen thousand dollars. In no country 

 or district has agriculture made more rapid strides in im- 

 provement, than it has in Scotland, since the organization 

 of this society ; and although it may not have been the 

 only, it most assuredly has been a principal cause, of this 

 wonderful and salutary change. Up to 1792, the agri- 

 culture of Scotland, to adopt the language of the Edin- 

 burgh Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, was "wretched 

 — execrably bad, in all its localities ! Hardly any wheat 

 was attempted to be grown ; oats full of thistles was the 

 standard crop, and this was repeated on the greater part 

 of the arable land, while it would produce twice the seed 

 thrown into it ; turnips, as part of the rotation of crops, 

 was unknown, few potatoes were raised, and no grass- 

 seeds or clover were sown. A great part of the sum- 

 mer was employed, in the now fertile shire of Fife, in 

 pulling thistles out of the oats, and bringing them home 

 for the horses, or mowing the rushes, or other aquatic 

 plants, that grew on the bogs, around the homestead.'' 

 But a change soon came over the land. The seed which 

 had been sown by the Highland Society had germinated, 

 and its luxuriant foliage already covered the soil. In 

 1815, according to the authority I am quoting, "beau- 

 tiful fields of wheat were to be seen ; drilled green crops 



