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the Experiment Station at Amherst for aid in deciding disputed 

 points and found a read}', helpful response. Let us realize that 

 the station exists to help us and use its help freely. The state 

 cattle commission affords veterinary aid of high order in time of 

 need. The State Board of Agriculture through its excellent re- 

 ports gives the best fresh information about our calling ; its 

 record of what is done by the farmers of the State is inspiring 

 and in the last report that for 1888, Sec'y. Session fills the ideal 

 of what such a report should be. Our County Society does its 

 part well in the great work of education. Hon. John E. Russell 

 when secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, said that 

 Essex County had contributed more to agricultural literature 

 than all the other counties of the State. Hon. Geo. B. Loring 

 told me that in the reports of our county society could be found 

 the best practical guides to success in farming that were ever 

 written, because they were not what somebody thought could 

 be done, but what had been done, often a very different thing. 

 He said that when as commissioner of agriculture he received a 

 letter from some distant state asking information about a crop, 

 or breed of cattle, he often turned to his file of Essex County 

 Agricultural reports to obtain the desired information. I know 

 that a New York gentleman looking for the best practical barn 

 that could be built at reasonable expense, secured the plan and 

 working drawings with details of construction of the barn on 

 this society's farm at Topsfield. 



Thus it will be seen that county, state and nation extend 

 abundant aid to the man who will give his life to the cultivation 

 of the soil. Nor need we look to ancient nations for examples 

 of men called from the plow to public life. One of our Essex 

 county farmers is Asa T. Newhall, recently in the State Senate, 

 and the same gentleman is now Mayor of Lynn. I doubt not 

 that the skill that induced a squash to grow engraved with his 

 name and address, will make some mark of ability and success 

 in whatever field he finds himself. Our genial secretary too has 

 been called from farming the rocky ways of Cape Ann, to a po- 



