Xll ADVERTISEMENT, 



The wants experienced by those more interested in other departmenis aie, 

 doubtless, equally pressing, and their demands for information, if expressed, 

 ■would be, perhaps, as urgent. The question, for example, is now attracting 

 great attention, ' What breed of milch cows is best adapted to the soil and 

 climate of Massachusetts, and the most profitable for its dairy stock.* The 

 Massachusetts Society has imported a number of animals of two of the best 

 foreign breeds, in order to test their qualities in this country, and from which 

 it is propagating, with the view to answer satisfactorily, as far as the experi- 

 ment goes, this very question. The facts which may be collected by the dif- 

 ferent Agricultural Societies in the State, representing, as they do, its different 

 sections, the opinions which may be formed and the judgments sanctioned in the 

 reports of their committees on this subject, and the fulness and the accuracy of 

 the statements of the owners of particular cows offered for premiums, have all 

 a tendency, and a strong tendency, to settle this question so important to the 

 agricultural interests of the Commonwealth. 



If the cause of agriculture has been constantly advancing in the Common- 

 wealth, under her w'ise and fostering care, and through the intelligence and 

 industry of her cultivators, still it has been somewhat retarded by the greater 

 facilities supposed to be possessed here for manufacturing and commercial en- 

 terprise. The deficiency of the harvests in Europe the last year, — the failure 

 especially, for two successive years, of the potato crop in Ireland, — have created 

 an unusual demand, at the present time, for the agricultural products of this 

 country, and that, too, for some of these products, where, heretofore, they have 

 sought a market with but limited success. Only a few years since, a writer in 

 Loudon's Magazine said, of Indian corn, that it produced only the scurvy in 

 man and the mange in swine. This prejudice is now dispelled ; the hand of 

 those that are famishing is eagerly extended to receive, as a precious boon, the 

 food which was once rejected by them as unfit for animal sustenance. It is 

 but reasonable to anticipate that the market thus opened for our Indian corn, as 

 well as many other of our agricultural products, will continue to be permanent 

 long after tlie horrors and devastations of famine shall have passed from the 

 lands now visited by it. Providence thus seems to be teaching that the inter- 

 ests of agriculture-may not be neglected for other more lucrative pursuits, and 

 that the highest efforts are demanded of those to whom these interests are 

 committed." 



The present Abstract has been made up on substantially the same 

 principles as that for 1845. All the addresses before Agricultural 

 Societies during the year, with one exception, having been already 

 given to the public in print, and the volume being nearly of the size 

 of the former, it seemed best to discontinue this part of the plan of last 

 year. On the other hand, I have added a list of officers of the sev- 

 eral societies for thie current year, — with the exception of Trustees, 

 who, in some societies, are numerous, — which, besides answering 



