APPENDIX. V 



opening the hawl by some sensible and practical remarks, was fol- 

 lowed by other members of the society, by the orator of the day, 

 Dr. Loring, Secretary Flint and others. The Doctor and the orator 

 had a good-natured tilt at each other, to the satisfaction of the spec- 

 tators who were probably as indifferent to the result as the woman 

 who witnessed the combat between her husband and bruin. Your 

 delegate was also called upon to respond in behalf of the State 

 Board, and he did so ; but it was so soon after dinner, the ladies 

 who filled the body of the church looked so fresh and charming, 

 the sturdy old farmers so knowing, the president of the society was 

 so complimentary in his introduction, and the gentlemen just allud- 

 ed to, between whom your delegate was sandwiched, glanced so ob- 

 liquely across or at your delegate, that he has much reason to doubt 

 if he did justice to his position, though he stood up manfully for 

 farmers being educated, and thus piit in all respects upon an equal 

 footing with the rest of American kind, and even went so far as to 

 hope to see the day when farmers' wives and daughters would pos- 

 sess such knowledge of the pursuits of their husbands and parents, 

 and especially of horticulture, that they would be valuable ad- 

 juncts instead of hindrances in the progress of agriculture. The 

 Secretaiy of this Board, Mr. Flint, made some very happy and ap- 

 posite remarks on roads^ of which he is just now the Colossus, and 

 his audience appeared to swallow his remarks as greedily as if they 

 believed them all. But I fear the stones which the Secretary threw 

 into them instead of bread, much interfered with their after diges- 

 tion. 



Finally your delegate came away from the pleasant precincts of 

 Ipswich, satisfied that the Essex Society is flourishing, notwithstand- 

 ing horses trot not on its tracks, money is not taken at the grounds 

 of its exhibitions, that it runs a farm by a committee, that it keeps 

 its ofticers in ser\'ice for a great number of consecutive years, and 

 that it has only a half century of experience. 



R. Goodman. 



MIDDLESEX. 



The seventy-sixth annual exhibition of the Middlesex Agricultu- 

 ral Society, was held at Concord, on Tuesday and Wednesday, 

 October 4 and 5, 1870. This is one of the oldest societies in the 

 State, dating back in its origin, almost to the period of the Revolu- 

 tion, yet exhibiting no indications of decline, but manifesting all 



