ESSEX AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 25 



tees, the statements of the contestants for premiums for 

 the management of farms, the reclaiming of waste or wet 

 lands, experiments with manures, and the like, and for 

 elaborate essays on special topics. 



The Addresses of this period were of notable quality. 

 Caleb Gushing, orator and statesman, delivered an elo- 

 quent oration in 1850. Gen. Henry K. Oliver, Salem 

 schoolmaster and Lawrence mill agent, spoke in 1852. 

 Richard S. Fay in 1854, Dr. James R. Nichols of Haver- 

 hill in 1855, Major Ben: Perley Poore, the famous war 

 correspondent during the Givil War, in 1856 ; Dr. George 

 B. Loring, the elegant and cultured farmer, politician, 

 future Commissioner of Agriculture and diplomat, in 

 1858. Edward Everett was a speaker at the dinner in 

 1858, taking the same part that fell to him in 1836, when 

 he was Governor of the Commonwealth. 



The Reports of this period vied with each other in 

 unique and grotesque peculiarities. Fitch Poole's report 

 on "Poultry" was a broad burlesque, entitled "The Con- 

 vention of the Domestic Poultry." Gen. Oliver followed 

 w:ith a humorous deliverance on "Bees and Honey," and 

 as these literary novelties proved attractive, no doubt, he 

 contributed a long poetical and classical essay on "Flow- 

 ers,' and in 1854, reporting on "Poultry," already cele- 

 brated in Fitch Poole's masterpiece, he produced a mar- 

 vellous compound of poetry and prose, embellished with 

 quotations from Virgil and Anacreon, Shakespeare and 

 Milton, Dryden and Gray, the New England Primer and 

 Mother Goose. Whereupon Fitch Poole launched into 

 poetry in 1858, with the humorous "Ballad of 1692 — The 

 Second Dream of Giles Corey." This seems queer diet 

 for the everyday farmer, and it is in no wise surprising 

 that it was remarked in 1857 that not more than a third 

 of the thousand members of the Essex Agricultural So- 

 ciety were exclusively tillers of the soil. But though it 

 bore the earmarks of a literary club, or a coterie of fine 

 gentlemen, the old Society was still true to its ideals. 



