252 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Not until near the end of the eighteenth century, and the 

 close of the revolutionary war and its devastating effects 

 upon the people and the industries of the country, was 

 there any awakening in regard to the improvement in agri- 

 culture. About this time public men in various parts of 

 the nation interested themselves in the desirability, as well 

 as the necessity, of improving the industries of the country, 

 and especially its agriculture, realizing that it was the lead- 

 ing industry, and the one above all others upon which de- 

 pended the welfare and prosperity of the people, as well as 

 the development of the nation ; and that, while individual 

 effort could, if exercised with energy, do much, united 

 action could do much more in fostering and encouraging 

 the declining industries. 



The end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of 

 the nineteenth witnessed the organization of the first agri- 

 cultural societies. At first with many of them the object 

 was to encourage some particular agricultural industry, in 

 which the promoters were especially interested, rather than 

 all the agricultural resources of locality or country. The 

 Berkshire Agricultural Society, one of the oldest in our 

 State, having held its ninety-first exhibition as an incorpo- 

 rated society, was the outcome of the exhibition of some 

 Merino sheep by one Elkanah Watson in 1809. Previous 

 to this, there had been several organized societies. The 

 first of which we find record was the South Carolina so- 

 ciety, in 1784; the Philadelphia, in 1785; the New York, 

 in 1791 ; and the Massachusetts, in 1792. All of these 

 societies were organized by men not especially agricultur- 

 ists, but energetic men of business, who recognized the im- 

 portance of agriculture and the necessity of encouraging it 

 as the leading industry, and the one on which all others 

 depended for success and material prosperity. 



These societies were regarded with suspicion or diffidence 

 by those immediately engaged in practical farming, as being 

 city organizations, promulgating theories not necessarily 

 practical or useful in general farm management. Conse- 

 quently, the benefits they were to be to the people were 

 slowly comprehended. The average farmer was unwilling 

 to adopt untried theories, however plausible they might 



