iv REPORTS OF DELEGATES. 



The result of the competition in the various departments was the 

 award of twenty-seven diplomas, and over one thousand dollars in 

 money. 



The Address. 

 After the ploughing match had been concluded, the procession 

 was re-formed and proceeded to the Pleasant Street Church, where- 

 upon other appropriate services were performed, the address was 

 delivered by Mr. Benjamin P. Ware, a farmer of Marblehead. He 

 spoke of the methods by which farming might be made profitable ; 

 the improvement of our products ; the increase of crops per acre ; 

 the importance of fruit growing, especially the apple ; the necessity 

 of agricultural education ; the success of our agricultural colleges as 

 no longer an experiment ; and many other topics, which evinced a 

 thorough knowledge, not only of tilling the soil, but the tilling of 

 the mind. As the address is already before the j^ublic, I will not 

 further enlarge on its excellence. 



The Dinner, 

 This was provided under a spacious pavilion, to which about five 

 hundred ladies and gentlemen sat down. The president of the 

 society. General William Sutton, presided. After the repast, 

 speeches were made by the president, Hon. Allen W. Dodge, ex- 

 president, Major Ben Pei-ley Poore, Mr. Ware, orator of the day, 

 Rev. Mr. Spaulding, Dr. Kelley and others. Your delegate was 

 also called on to respond in behalf of the State Board. He alluded 

 to the stability and influence of the Essex Society from the days of 

 Timothy Pickering, its first president, to the present time ; also to 

 the excellence of the fruits on exhibition, tracing this improvement 

 back to Robert Manning, an Essex man, and one of the founders of 

 the Massachusetts Horticultural Society ; and still further back, to 

 Governor Endicott, whose pear-tree still survives at Danvers. 

 These and similar examples were the seed, which has vegetated, 

 and to which may be traced, in a great measure, the increase of 

 agricultural and horticultural societies in our country, which he 

 estimated at more than thirteen hundred at this time. He alluded 

 also to the efiicient labors of the gentlemen whom he saw around 

 him, — to General Sutton as a liberal benefactor, Hon. Allen W. 

 Dodge, ex-president and secretary for many years, and to Major 

 Ben Perley Poore, who for a long time was his secretary in the 

 United States Agricultural Society, the orator, Mr. Ware, and to 

 others as associates and co-laborers in the promotion of agricultural 

 and horticultural knowledge. 



