ESSEX AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 35 



petition with the sulky and one pair of horses. Though 

 an old farmer is usually conservative regarding new in- 

 ventions, his one rough and uneven furrow was enough 

 to convince him, and he acknowledged on the spot, "The 

 sulky is the plough of the future." 



The horse was coming rapidly to the place of honor. 

 In 1885 the Society offered its first premium for gentle- 

 men's driving horses, and in the following year there 

 was a notable display. Premiums were awarded for 

 Stallions, first and second class. Brood Mares, Family 

 Horses, Gentlemen's Driving Horses, Draft Horses, Pairs 

 of Draft Horses, Pairs of Farm Horses, and for Colts 

 for draft purposes in two classes, and for general pur- 

 poses in two classes also. 



At Peabody, in 1887, greater dignity than ever before 

 attended the public exercises. A procession was formed 

 of officers, members and friends of the Society, headed by 

 the 8th Regiment Band, which marched to the Peabody 

 Institute, where Dr. William Cogswell of Bradford de- 

 livered the annual address. In the following year a more 

 pretentious procession was formed, with all the oxen and 

 horses and various teams in line, which paraded through 

 the streets. 



A singularly happy episode marked the close of this 

 decade. At a Farmers' Institute at Peabody, December, 

 1888 ,a very appreciative essay on Whittier, the farmer's 

 poet, was read, and a message was sent to the poet con- 

 gratulating him on the health of body and mental vigor 

 with which he had reached and passed his eighty-first 

 birthday, and assuring him "that in no places are your 

 poems read with more interest and pleasure, or your 

 works of tenderest love cherished with a purer admiration 

 than in the homes of the farmers of your native County 

 of Essex." 



The poet replied, expressing deep gratification with the 

 message, and recalling that he had worked faithfully on 

 the old Haverhill homestead until at the age of thirty 



