MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 457 



art that of all arts most conduces to peace, and flourishes by 

 peace, it is difficult to see the propriety of associating with it 

 the art of war, even in its mildest aspect. 



The hall, where were exhibited the fruits and domestic man- 

 ufactures, is one of the largest and best adapted for the purpose, 

 your delegate has ever entered on such occasions. It is the 

 Town Hall of Northampton, and if the legal voters of that 

 town, at their municipal meetings, bring forth fruits as rich 

 and rare, as were here displayed by its farmers and horticul- 

 turists, it must, indeed, be a privilege to be at their meetings. 

 The show of apples was superior to that of other fruits, and 

 was of the highest order. If the apple can be generally grown 

 in the Connecticut valley, in such perfection as the specimens 

 here exhibited, the farmers in that region should engage largely 

 in this branch of husbandry, and with proper skill and care 

 they would be abundantly rewarded. The premiums on fruit, 

 were awarded in sums of considerable amount to the best col- 

 lections and the largest varieties. The practice, so common 

 with our societies, of distributing premium^ for fruit in small 

 sums — sums less than a dollar, even to a quarter fraction of a 

 dollar, — and to every contributor, seems to be at variance with 

 the mode of bestowing premiums in the other departments of 

 an agricultural show. Fifty dollars awarded in ten premiums,, 

 would accomplish more good, than if it M^ere divided into fifty 

 premiums, or one hundred. And yet the latter course is the 

 most prevailing one, and thus all distinctions among fruit grow- 

 ers are confounded, and competition so far is paralyzed. 



The reports of the diiferent committees seem to be drawn 

 with care, and some of them to possess not a little merit, as 

 literary .productions. The reports on fruits and vegetables, 

 made to this society in 1847 and 1848, by the lamented Wood- 

 ward, are models of their kind, and will long endure, as a 

 perennial wreath, entwined around the memory of their gifted 

 and philanthropic author. Fine writing in an agricultural re- 

 port, merely to exhibit the author rather than the subject, is 

 not desirable. By no means ; and yet careful attention to the 

 drafting of a report ought not to be neglected. It is indeed 

 grateful to a mind of any perception of the just, and true, and 

 58 



