MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 411 



ments for the time of the agricultural societies to hold their 

 meetings. The State society cannot well arrange the premi- 

 ums and the details of the operations of the several county 

 agricultural societies. They have no means of doing it. It is 

 utterly out of their power to do it. 



Now this Board will be composed of gentlemen knowing the 

 wants of the several agricultural societies and their manner of 

 doing business. They can there consolidate their views and 

 information, and carry out the details as regards the premiums, 

 the reports, the publications, and the various operations of the 

 different societies. Many of our premiums, as given by our 

 agricultural societies, do very little good. They are a mere 

 name. We give, in the Plymouth society, a premium for the 

 best milch cow. Now we have no report of the sizes or dams 

 of those cows. We have no report of their blood ; whether 

 they are of one breed or another, — of their shape or their size; 

 but we have merely the quantity of milk and the feed which 

 they have had. This affords us very little opportunity for im- 

 provement. It is so with our working oxen. We want the 

 information that some gentlemen in the Commonwealth have 

 acquired. We want, as the gentlemen have said before, to 

 know something of what they have learned. And if we have 

 anything to communicate, we will communicate with them. 

 This is the grand object ; and it seems to me that it might be 

 carried on without interfering with the State society. It is not 

 intended to interfere, and if it should be thought that it does 

 reflect on that society, I hope that it will be so managed as that 

 it will not do so. 



Remarks of Mr. Gray, president of the Stat-e Society : — I 

 see nothing in this resolution which reflects upon the State 

 society. While I say that the State society, or the gentlemen 

 who have had the administration of it, have done all in their 

 power to promote the interests of agriculture, and would have 

 been happy if their power had been greater, I think I may say 

 for them that they will feel no objection to this resolution. 

 The State society, if they had done anything for agriculture, 

 are bound to say that their labors have been fully appreciated. 

 They were the earliest society in existence, and I believe that 



