aiding your own exertions to make of all Berkshire a garden. There is room 

 enough for them, and they furnish a market for skilled agrieultural labor. 



The annual addresses delivered before your society disclose the growth of 

 agricultural research, experiment and science. They are replete with suggestions 

 upon all farm topics. They are landmarks showing the changes in agricultural 

 methods. A very entertaining and useful paper might be written on the practical 

 points to be found in them. One has but to examine any of the farms in this 

 county upon which your society has in recent years bestowed its premium and 

 contrast it with the same farm forty years ago to note the great stride in Berkshire 

 agriculture. If many of our farms have fewer acres they are better tilled. Cul- 

 tivating a little land thoroughly has been found to pay the best. We had in 1880 

 3,751 farms of an average size of 128 acres and valued at $12,695,545. We are 

 progressing, and the influence of this society. I say it advisedly, has aided more 

 than any other other one cause in that advance. 



The changes in the sources of farm revenue present quite a study. ' As we 

 have seen, the early settlers had few. In the period before the organization of 

 your society they were still scanty, the dairy being perhaps the chief. Cattle, horses 

 and mules were sent to market. Soon after 18 10, however, there grew to be two 

 chief sources of farm revenue, from sheep and from the dairy. Previous to 1840, 

 however, the sheep began to fall off, and the main source of revenue was from the 

 dairy. This county is adapted for that business. At that time (1840) the Hudson 

 River boats brought the markets of the city of New York near to our western 

 border. Two cents a pound was allowed for freight and sale, and butter and 

 other produce found a ready market. The roads to the river after the western 

 hills were surmounted were among the best in the country. Plaster, and articles 

 of family necessity were brought back from the river. Now the sources of farm 

 revenue are various. With the growth of our towns, market gardens have sprung 

 up. Thoroughbred cattle, horses, sheep for mutton, and farm produce generally, 

 are disposed of, though the dairy still holds a prominent place. 



CHANGES IN STOCK. 



Mr. Watson, in the history of your society, published in 1819, claims to have 

 introduced into the county in 1807 a new breed of sheep— the merino ; also a new 

 breed of swine from Dutchess count)- in 1S0S, and in the same year a young bull 

 of "the celebrated English stock;" and in 1S09 he, with a few friends, stocked a 

 pond with pickerel. For nearly a whole generation the native stock held their 

 ground, and in 1838 Mr. Coleman says, "The fanners are unanimous in their pre- 

 ference of the common native slock, in which the Devon blood predominates. 

 They are not, however, raisers of stock, and buy their cows wherever they can 

 find them, according to their best judgment." '-Excepting in one instance," he 

 says, "perhaps there cannot be found in the whole of New England a single in- 

 stance of any enligtened and systematic attempt to form a race of animals of 

 particular and desirable properties." Berkshire county can tell a far different 

 story to-day. The beginning of renewed interest in the importation oi thorough- 

 bred stock began about the year 1865. Hon. Richard Goodman of Lenox, also a 

 president of your society, brought into the county imported shorthorns and then 

 went into the breeding; oi ferseys. Mr. George T. Plunkett of Hindale, another 



