8 AGRICULTURE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



required, to be published in such way and manner as he, with the 

 advice of the couucil shall deem to be expedient and useful ; and he 

 is authorized to draw his warrants, from time to time, upon the treas- 

 ury for such sums, as may be necessary to defray the expenses of said 

 survey, and to enable the person, so appointed, to proceed in the exe- 

 cution of the duties, that shall be required of him ; and to pay the 

 same to him, not exceeding the sum of two thousand five hundred 

 dollars per annum. 



Rev. Henry Colman was appointed commissioner on the 27th 

 of the ensuing May, and on the 15th of June received instruc- 

 tions for the prosecution of the work. He published four 

 reports, which had a wide circulation in this country and 

 attracted favorable attention abroad. The resolve was re- 

 pealed, and the office discontinued, by chapter 14 of the 

 Resolves of 1841. 



By chapter 111 of the Acts of 1845, approved March 7, the 

 secretary of the Commonwealth was directed to cause as full 

 an abstract from the returns of the agricultural societies to be 

 made and published in each year, for distribution, as in his 

 judgment would prove useful. Eight of these volumes were 

 published. By the act establishing a State Board of Agri- 

 culture it was provided that all the duties of the secretary 

 of the Commonwealth relating to returns of agricultural socie- 

 ties should be performed by the secretary of the Board of 

 Agriculture. 



Probably the first published article upon the subject of a 

 Board of Agriculture for Massachusetts was a report by Com- 

 missioner Colman while engaged in making an agricultural 

 survey of the State.* 



The commissioners to whom were referred the resolves of 

 the Legislature of 1850, concerning the establishment of an 

 agricultural school, etc., in their report in January, 1851, rec- 

 ommended the establishment of a State Department of Agri- 

 culture, which should sustain a similar relation to agriculture 

 and the schools connected with it, as the board and secretary 

 of education do to primary schools. 



In the " Advertisement to the Transactions of the Agricult- 

 ural Societies" for the y#3ar 1850, Hon. Amasa Walker, sec- 



* Referred to in his fourth report, page xiii, but not printed in either of his four 

 reports. 



