338 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



reports, would enable us to witness and to obtain facts which 

 we could otherwise learn only by riding over a great many 

 farms, and searching the pages of multitudes of journals. 

 Experiments, made under the direction of an intelligent com- 

 mittee of an agricultural society would bo judiciously selected, 

 and conducted in a methodic and intelligible manner. There 

 is no end to the advantages which a society would enjoy, for 

 rational and philosophical experiments, on a farm under tlie 

 management of a clear-headed and industrious superintendent. 



Before we proceed to enumerate the objects which might be 

 accomplished, it ought to be premised that the farm should be 

 made to pay its own expenses, as this fact made known to the 

 public, would afford to common minds the most intelligible and 

 satisfiictory evidence of the practical utility of the institution. 

 The produce should pay for all the labor expended on it. 

 Though it could not reasonably be expected that the farm, in a 

 commercial sense should be made profitable to tlie society, the 

 object of the donor would undoubtedly be accomplished, if the 

 experiments made upon it should furnish the community with 

 certain useful discoveries, without any pecuniary loss. If a fund 

 should be bequeathed or donated to the society, it might bo 

 prudent to use up the interest of this fund v/ithout expecting 

 any substantial returns ; but the public would be better satisfied, 

 if the produce of the fiirm should always cover the actual 

 expense laid out upon the crops. 



Let us r.ow proceed to consider in detail the objects which 

 should be sought in the conduct of the farm. 



1, The society should confine its attention chiefly to such 

 experiments as require too much science to be well conducted 

 by the generality of farmers, and which are not im|)artially 

 made by gardeners and nursery-men. The latter arc constantly 

 experimenting upon fruits, but the results are not always hon- 

 estly given. Not that there is often a wilful and deliberate 

 intention of deceiving the public, but these men are influenced 

 'by a strong temptation to exaggerate the merits of any new 

 variety of fruit wliich they hold in their exclusive possession, 

 ;and by the sale of which they hope to make a profit propor- 

 tioned to tlieir praises. Otliers who are not interested, might 

 endeavor to expose the partiality of the encomiums passed upon 

 tlie fruit by its proprietor ; but the public has equal reason to 



