122 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



PLOUGHING. 



WORCESTER. 



Report of the Committee. 



Your committee claim to be veterans in the ancient and hon- 

 orable occupation of ploughing — a large majority having seen 

 much field service, either as holder or driver, and frequently 

 serving in both capacities at the same time ; and some of us 

 claim the honor, pleasure, and profit of participating annually, 

 either as ploughmen or drivers, or of being chained to the post, 

 for a whole generation (of thirty years;) and they well recol- 

 lect the old wooden plough that was used here thirty-five years 

 ago at the society's first exhibition. It was then ride and tie ; 

 you ride, then I. Each owner of oxen had the privilege of 

 hitching his team to this one plough, and with a driver, and a 

 strong man to hold, bracing himself at an angle of forty-five 

 degrees. And the cry from the wondering spectators, as well 

 as marshals, was, — 



Clear the brown path, to meet his colter's gleam ; 

 Lo ! on he comes, behind his smoking team ; 

 With toil's bright dewdrops on his sunburnt brow, 

 The lord of earth, the hero of the plough. 



A generation has passed. We have ploughed in thirty-five 

 different fields, and on many of them now stand some of the 

 most costly dwellings to be found. And it is believed by your 

 committee that if at any time the good old Commonwealth 

 should find fault with the part of the bounty she has so liber- 

 ally bestowed on us for the promotion of this object, we could 

 easily show her that she, in turn, had been richly remunerated 

 for paying our tuition; for, wherever we have ploughed, good 

 crops have been sure to follow: first milk, then meat, then 

 men, not a few, nor of ordinary quality — three at least who 

 have most honorably and wisely administered her government 

 nearly or quite half of the years we have been ploughing. Be- 

 sides, our land has produced a larger crop of house and city 

 lots than can be found in any other agricultural society to 

 which she has extended her bounty. We have ploughed tho 



