AGRICULTURE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



THE DUTIES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF AN 

 AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



From an Address before the Essex County Agricultural Society, Sept. 30, 1858. 



BY GEORGE B. LOKING. 



It was not simply, gentlemen, to excite a spirit of emu- 

 lation in the farmers of this county, — it was not to create a 

 rivalry here which might end in enriching the soil and embit- 

 tering the people, — it was not to record a chapter of fortunate 

 accidents, along list of mammoth fruits and monster animals, — 

 it was not to encourage an ill-regulated and unprofitable strife 

 for excellence, that our fathers founded this society in which we 

 take pride, as in a rich inheritance. Do you suppose the wise 

 and practical patriot and statesman, whose lofty duties in the 

 service of his country established an intimacy between the 

 planter of Mount Vernon and the farmer of Wenham, Hon. T. 

 Pickering, which gave a glowing dawn to our rising republic, 

 and shed the golden sunset hues of these great lives over Amer- 

 ican agriculture, had no higher aim than this, when he gave 

 the first impulse to our foundation ? It was the recorded expe- 

 rience of more than a quarter of a century which he desired to 

 accumulate, and we are now living to enjoy the realization of 

 those hopes with which his mind was filled. His dreams are 

 our realities. Year after year the work has been going on, 

 until the farmers of this county have the classics and text-books 

 of their education in the pages of your Transactions. Here, on 

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