Ill 



organization within a short time, with local interests, 

 rather than general. The letter also suggested canvas 

 covering for the pens. 



Mr. C. C. Blunt, of Andover, opposed permanent loca- 

 tion, but advocated Itents to protect the stock. He said 

 the society was in the first rank of agricultural societies 

 and hoped it would remain so. 



Mr. Andrews, of Essex, and Mr. Emerson, of Haverhill, 

 answered some of the reasons alleged, why the location 

 should be permanent, very ably. Mr. Emerson said stock 

 must be moved the same with a permanent location as 

 now, and tents, buildings and pens will rot there the same 

 as now and wear out. 



President Ware took the floor and made able remarks 

 against a permanent location. He said he thought a per- 

 manent location meant a horse trot and nothing else. He 

 believed a horse trot had no more to do with agriculture 

 than a circus had. The Essex society oifers much larger 

 premiums to exhibitors than other societies, and has ten 

 times the invested funds of any of them (except the Ames- 

 bury and Salisbury) and six times as much as they have. 



In the afternoon Vice President 0. S. Butler, presided 

 and introduced President Ware, who gave an account of his 

 recent travels through the South. Before the war, the en- 

 tire energy of tlie planters was devoted to raising cotton, 

 while meat, provisions and about everything was imported 

 from the North and West, and in some few sections it is 

 much the same to-day. In some localities watermelons, 

 potatoes and other vegetables are raised and sent north at 

 a good profit. 



A more shiftless, lazy and wasteful method of agriculture 

 the speaker never saw than on some of these cotton planta- 

 tions. Neither hay, corn, nor vegetables are raised for 

 home sustenance but are purchased instead, and all the 

 work put into the cotton crop. It is a very common custom 

 for the farmer to mortgage his crop to the storekeeper in 

 advance to get supplies on credit, and when the crop is har- 



