101 



ESSAYS AND REPORTS. 



The Committee ou the award of premiums for Essays and 

 Reports find the same difficulty in making a decision that so 

 often besets the other Committees called upon to pass judg- 

 ment in cases where there does not seem to be much to choose. 

 Only two essays were offered this year, — one by Ansel W. 

 Putnam, of Danvers, upon "The Comparative Value of Crops 

 as Food for Cattle ;" and the other by James J. H. Gregory, 

 of Marblehead, upon "The Angle Worm." As regards gen- 

 eral merit, there may not have been much to choose between 

 these, but that of Mr. Putnam, — which seemed to be more of 

 a statement of experiments than what is understood by a for- 

 mal essay, — appeared to be of the most practical turn, and 

 the Committee therefore gave it the preference, without as- 

 signing it to the rank of such essays as they understand to be 

 contemplated in the award of a first premium. Mr. Gregory's 

 essay is interesting as a newspaper article or as a paper to be 

 read before a natural history society. It may also be useful 

 as tending to awaken the farmer's attention to the consoling 

 probability that worms and insects may have a legitimate use 

 in the economy of nature, and that this side of the question 

 may be worth a more careful hearing than farmers usually 

 give to it. Beyond this, the utility of the treatise, as a help 

 to farming, was not clear to the Committee. No first premi- 

 um was awarded ; but the second, of $10, was given to An- 

 sel W. Putnam, for his essay on crops as food, and the third, 

 $8, to J. J. H. Gregory, for his essay on the angle-worm. 



There was not a great deal to choose between those reports 

 that appeared most worthy to come within the range of a 

 premium. A report of intrinsic value, taken as a whole, 

 would not, of necessity, be entitled to a premium, especially 

 where the main value resides in the different statements of 

 the farmers who contribute to it, and where these statements 

 have not been specially utilized, by the writer or compiler of 

 the report, with some new and fresh thought or conspicuous- 



