232 



MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



past season in some of the neighboring States, and have been 

 found a very great saving of time and labor. What a blessing 

 a steam engine, force pump, and a few hundred feet of leading 

 hose would have been to many farmers during the late drought 

 for the purposes of irrigation, where the land was so situated 

 as it respects water to admit of its being done ! Many crops 

 could thus have been saved which the drought destroyed, and 

 others rendered sufficiently more abundant to have paid the 

 cost of its use. 



I would most earnestly impress upon the society the impor- 

 tance of increasing the amount and number of prizes for imple- 

 ments, with a view of encouraging their exhibition at our shows. 

 Farmers can only learn in this way how much there is within 

 their reach to enable them to carry on their operations at the 

 least cost. Books and newspapers describe the principle of a 

 machine well enough ; but it requires to be seen, and, if possible, 

 put to work, to convey a just idea of its value and importance. 

 Nothing that I have ever seen surprised me more, or gave 

 me greater pleasure, than the implement department at the 

 English agricultural shows,* outnumbering and surpassing in 

 actual value every thing else, fat cattle and still fatter pigs in- 

 cluded, and demonstrating, in the most unmistakable manner, 



* At the Gloucester Royal Agricultural Show, 1853, the number of implements 

 exhibited was 1,803 ; number of exhibiters, 121 ; total declared value, $120,000 ; 

 average cost to purchase, ,f 66. 



At Lincoln, this year, the number was about 3,000. A comparison of the last 

 four years of the number of implements exhibited at the Royal Agricultural Socie- 

 ty's Shows with the corresponding year of 1840 will convey a correct idea of the 

 great attention this subject is exciting in the best cultivated country in the world. 



The prizes awarded for the agricultural implements in 1853 amounted to forty 

 per cent, of the total awards for that year. The prizes awarded for agricultural 

 implements in Massachusetts were only one and one- fourth per cent, of the total 

 awards for the same year. 



