672 MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



A part of this Board are ex officio members, whose time of 

 service expires at the close of the political year, and thus a 

 change of members is likely to occur at the very time when 

 the returns are coming in. 



It is desirable, on many accounts, that the report of this 

 Board, like that of the Board of Education, should be made up 

 by the 1st of January. But this cannot be properly done, un- 

 less the law is so altered as to require the several societies to 

 make their returns as early as the first day of December. This, 

 it is believed, will occasion no inconvenience to them, as their 

 exhibitions are usually closed as early as the 1st of November, 

 and generally much earlier. The proposed change would also 

 enable the Secretary of this Board to get out the annual trans- 

 actions soon after the assembling of the legislature. 



As a great want of uniformity exists in the manner in which 

 the returns of the different societies are now made up, it is 

 suggested, that if the Board were authorized by law to estab- 

 lish the needful formulas, and fm-nish to the societies the 

 requisite blanks, a very desirable improvement might be made 

 in the character of their annual statistics. They would be 

 rendered much more available and useful. 



It would seem to be the right, as well as the duty, of the 

 State to do this. Agricultural societies, like the common 

 schools, receive the bounty of the Commonwealth. Should 

 they not, like the schools, be required to make uniform and 

 reliable returns ? 



The importance of this measure is deeply felt by those ac- 

 quainted with the chaotic and imperfect state of the returns 

 now made. 



In closing this report, it is deemed proper to add, that this 

 Board owes its existence, in a great measure, to efforts made 

 by the friends of agriculture in 1851. On the 20th of March, 

 of that year, a large convention of gentlemen from all parts of 

 the State assembled at Boston, and organized a voluntary asso- 

 ciation, under the name of " The Massachusetts Board of Agri- 

 culture." This Board, although unaided by the State, carried 

 on a series of extensive operations through the year, appointed 

 committees to visit and report upon all the exhibitions of the 

 different agricultural societies, and by its vigorous efforts 

 aroused so great an interest in agricultural affairs, that at the 



