ORGANIZATION OF THE STATE BOARD. 13 



officio, the Lieut. Governor, Secretary of State, and now the 

 President of the Massachusetts Agricultural College. 



The first and most important business of the department was 

 to secure the services of a permanent Secretary. All eyes were 

 turned to Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, President of Amherst College, 

 who had been intimately associated with the efforts for the pro- 

 motion of agricultural education, and he was unanimously 

 elected to that ofiice, but his duties in connection with the col- 

 lege, and declining health, compelled him to decline the appoint- 

 ment. 



The selection of Secretary then became a matter of deep 

 solicitude, but after much deliberation and investigation of the 

 various qualifications of various candidates, the choice fell upon 

 Charles L. Flint, then a young lawyer just established in busi- 

 ness in New York, a gentleman whose love for rural pursuits 

 induced him to abandon a lucrative profession and devote his 

 life to the instincts of his nature. Fortunate indeed for the 

 Board was the selection of a gentleman whose attainments and 

 long experience have made his name extensively known, not 

 only in our own but other lands. Long may he live to enjoy 

 the meed of praise he has so richly deserved. 



Thus the Board of Agriculture, with vested powers, became 

 the organ of the farming community, being placed near and 

 connected with the government, so that the wliole legislation 

 in reference to bounties, premiums, and general agricultural 

 interest of the State has been controlled or influenced by the 

 department, and thus by its operations it was also brought im- 

 mediately into friendly communication and reciprocal relations 

 with the various local agricultural associations of the Common- 

 wealth, dispensing to them and receiving in return valuable 

 information for the benefit of the public. 



One of the first acts of the Central Board was the arranging 

 of days for the various exhibitions of societies, and also the as- 

 signment to committees of special subjects for essays, both of 

 which measures were retained by our present Board, and to 

 which was immediately added the appointment of delegates to 

 visit and report on the exhibitions of the local Societies. 



By the Act constituting the State Board all the duties which 

 had been performed by the Secretary of State in regard to agri- 

 "cultural matters now devolved on the Secretary of the Board 



