ESSEX AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 15 



kind and made in the right way — unless they are exact and 

 accurate, so conducted and so reported as to admit of proper 

 arrangement and comparison — they will avail little, and may 

 even lead to confused and mistaken notions." 



Hon. Otis P. Lord spoke before the society, at Haverhill, 

 September 26, 1866. He said : " It has seemed to me that 

 now, just as we are emerging from this terrible cojiflict, there 

 can be no fitter subject for an hour's consideration than the 

 nature, object and purposes of good government, with special 

 reference to our own and its institutions." And so he spoke of 

 government. 



Rev. R. H. Seeley, D.D., addressed the society at Haverhill, 

 September 25, 1867. He said : " Let him, therefore, who has 

 a farm in any district of New England, which equals the average 

 for fertility and advantages of position, hold it, as the safest 

 form in which his property can be invested, and work it with 

 that thought and skill which are the guarantee of fair returns, 

 remembering, meanwhile, that not the ruler of the State nor 

 the proudest merchant upon 'change is so independent as him- 

 self of the crises and changes which, whether by violence or the 

 operation of steady laws, occur so frequently in the social and 

 political affairs of the country." At the same time he adds, 

 " In this connection the suogestion may be worth heeding, that 

 the New England farmer should not expect too large profits 

 from his farm." 



A peculiar interest attaches to these addresses, from the fact 

 that they are all the efforts of citizens of Essex County, of men 

 conversant with t)ie wants and purposes of this locality, and 

 familiar with the questions and objects of importance among us 

 in their own day. And they indicate most creditable ability in 

 those various walks of life from which their authors have been 

 taken. 



But not in addresses alone has the agricultural thought of 

 this county been engaged for the last half century. The 

 example set by the distinguished first president has been fol- 

 lowed to this day. The practical essays, more or less elaborate, 

 of Timotiiy Pickering, numbering in all nearly two hundred, 

 form a part of the most valuable literature of the society. In 

 this work he had many followers. The " statements," as they 

 were called, of farmers who entered their stock and crops for 



