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cases to forbid its gratification ; yet the desire still exists, arising 

 not so much from the expectation of profit, as from a natural love 

 of agricultural pursuits. 



To those, who, by success in other avocations, obtain the 

 means, and are not only enabled, but who actually do carry into 

 effect, what may have been a long cherished wish, and who are, 

 when this is done, not unfrequently termed gentlemen farmers, or 

 amateur farmers, agriculture is under great obligations. Such 

 enter upon their new occupation with a zest that those who follow 

 it as a labor cannot feel ; they try experiments ihat others will 

 not, and perhaps cannot afford to try, — find out, and introduce 

 new and improved means of cultivation, — seek out new fruits and 

 grains, — import expensive foreign animals, to improve the native 

 stock, and in these and other modes, cause an advance in the art, 

 that would not otherwise be so soon, at least, attained, constituting 

 of what may have been in derision termed a fancy farm — a school 

 for husbandry. It is such as these, who for the good they effect, 

 that are justly entitled to a high place in public estimation, and 

 when actuated, as is usually the case, not only by a love of the 

 science, but by a spirit of liberality, they place the results of 

 their labors and discoveries at the disposal of the public, are to 

 be considered as its benefactors. None have done more, few as 

 much, to promote agricultural science, to improve agricultural 

 practice, as Timothy Pickering, the first President of your 

 Society, John Lowell, and their associates, who led the way in 

 those measures, that have so powerfully contributed to the present 

 more advanced state of this art in New England. No one is now 

 doing more to cause a further improvement than John P. Gushing, 

 who makes his wealth subservient to the most useful purposes, or 

 Marshall P. Wilder, who having done so much in horticulture, Ijy 

 the introduction of a great number of the newest and most 

 valuable fruits, and of the rarest and most beautiful flowers, 

 liberally placing his acquisitions within reach of the public, and 

 seeking to ascertain, by scientific experiments, the proper mode 

 of their cultivation, is now devoting himself zealously and 



