1858.] SENATE— No. 4. 7 



by contact with others. The reader feels more interest in theo- 

 ries or facts presented to his notice, and examines them more 

 attentively, if he has heard them discussed by his neighbors and 

 friends, or is himself in the habit of joining in such discussions. 

 Hence he will understand them better and be better able to 

 apply them to his own practice. 



It is so with all arts. The degree of improvement attainable 

 by individual effort or skill, is very low when compared with 

 that which may be reached by the united labor of many. In 

 general, the worker himself — even if he be the greatest inventor 

 or mechanical genius the world ever knew — can do more if 

 he have an associate. But after his work is finished — when a 

 knowledge of the product of his skill is to be spread abroad 

 that its benefits may be enjoyed by the greatest number possi- 

 ble — then it is especially, that we see the good effects of all 

 that tends to make intercourse between man and man more 

 frequent. 



In this State, the importance of agricultural exhibitions was 

 first appreciated by the members of the Massachusetts Society 

 for the Promotion of Agriculture, and the first State exhibition 

 was held in Brighton on the second Tuesday of October, 1816, 

 for the purpose of encouraging improvements in stock. The 

 following year encouragement was also extended to agricultural 

 experiments, mechanical inventions and domestic manufactures, 

 and these objects have ever since keen kept in view by the 

 county societies, some of which, as the / Berkshire and the 

 Middlesex, had held exhibitions in their respective localities 

 before the State exhibition at Brighton. 



Eminent authority existed, even at that time, for the course 

 adopted by the Massachusetts and other societies. Almost all 

 the European governments had made it a part of their estab- 

 lished policy to encourage the development of agriculture, many 

 of them seeking to produce the desired effect by direct grants 

 in the shape of loans or premiums for specific improvements, 

 and others by the incorporation of agricultural societies. The 

 British government, for instance, appropriated about twenty- 

 five thousand dollars to the board of agriculture, when it was 

 established in 1794, besides making a liberal annual grant from 

 the treasury, and the beneficial results of these measures are 

 too apparent to admit of dispute. The well known opinion 



