4 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



honor and virtue. The heautiful language applied by President 

 Kirkland to Fisher Ames is no less true and beautiful when 

 applied to Mr. Saltonstall : ' Happily he did not need the smart 

 of guilt to make him virtuous, nor the regret of folly to make 

 him wise.' Liberty, religion and holiness he loved, and his rev- 

 erence for God was habitual and controlling." 



Mr. Saltonstall won high honors in the State and in the 

 nation ; and death alone, whicli laid its icy hand on him before 

 he had reached old age, prevented his attaining still higher po- 

 sition. He was president of the society from 1842 to 1845. 

 Of those who succeeded him in ofifice, three have passed away — 

 Newell, Adams and Fay — all eminent in agriculture, and all 

 recipients of heartfelt eulogy from their associates here after 

 they had left their fields of labor. 



Of the presidents of the society there are now living, 

 James H, Duncan, president from 1836 to 1839 ; John W. 

 Proctor, president from 1845 to 1852 ; Allen W. Dodge, presi- 

 dent from 1861 to 1863 ; Joseph How, president from 1863 to 

 to 1865 ; William Sutton, president, chosen in 1865. 



Stepping out of the list of presidents, I find one name among 

 our secretaries, whose fortunate public career, cut off as it was 

 by premature death, made him peculiarly conspicuous. It is 

 hardly necessary that I should say that I refer to Daniel P. 

 King. Mr. King possessed that rare combination of faculties 

 which secures for its possessor the reputation of being specially 

 favored of fortune. Passing most of his life on his secluded 

 farm, he was a careful observer of public affairs ; and when 

 brought into the work of a servant of the people, his prudence, 

 good judgment and sound information gave him peculiar advan- 

 tages over the more ambitious and restless. I think one of the 

 most eloquent and appropriate tributes ever paid by one public 

 man to another, was that pronounced by Caleb Cushing, in his 

 allusion to the death of Mr. King, at the annual meeting of this 

 society in 1850, when he says of him : " He owed to the acci- 

 dents of birth and circumstances but this — that he was enabled 

 to i)ass into the public service without going through that 

 apprenticeship in active life, or training in the learned profes- 

 sions, which, though it sharpen the faculties and eidarge the 

 sphere of knowledge, yet has a tendency to leave the heart 

 hardened in the conflict of human passions and interests, and 



