16 



the several Agricultural Societies and their manner of doing busin 

 They can there consolidate their views and information and carry out 

 details as regards the premiums, the reports, the publications, and the 

 rious operations of the different Societies. Many of our premiums, 

 given by our Agricultural Societies, do very little good. They are a n 

 name. We give, in the Plymouth County Agricultural Society, a prem 

 for the best milch cow. Now we have no report of the sizes or darr 

 those cows. We have no report of their blood ; whether they are of 

 breed or another, of their shape or their size ; but we have merely 

 quantity of milk and the feed which they have had. This affords us i 

 little opportunity for improvement. It is so with our working oxen, 

 want the information that some gentlemen in the Commonwealth have 

 quired. We want, as the gentlemen have said before, to know sometl 

 of what they have learned. And if we have any thing to communicate, 

 will communicate with them. This is the grand object ; and it seem 

 me that it might be carried on without interfering with the State Socii 

 It is not intended to interfere, and if it should be thought that it does re] 

 on that Society, I hope that it will be so managed as that it will not dc 



SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN C. GRAY, PRESIDENT OF THE STj 



AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



MR. PRESIDENT 



I think it becomes me, in the first place, as representing the State 

 ciety, to acknowledge the liberality with which gentlemen, as well th 

 who have hesitated in supporting the resolution as those who have give 

 their support, have spoken of the State Society. But my opinion agi 

 with that of my friend who has just taken his seat. I see nothing in 

 resolution which reflects upon the State Society. While I say that 

 State Society, or the gentlemen who have had the administration of it, h 

 done all in their power to promote Ihe interests of agriculture, and we 

 have been happy if their power had been greater, I feel as if I may say 

 them that they will feel no objection to this resolution. The State 

 oiety, if they have done any thing for agriculture, are bound to say 1 

 their labors have been fully appreciated. They were the earliest Soc; 

 in existence, and I believe that from the beginning they have been trea 

 with the utmost liberality as well from the government of the Comm 

 wealth as from the County Societies. 



But I have said more than once, that if the State Society has confei 

 any benefit upon the Commonwealth, one of the greatest has been this 

 that by the impulse which they gave to the study and practice of agri< 

 ture, whatever it may be deemed to have been, they led to the formal 

 of the County Societies. They were, if they may be allowed to call thi 

 selves as teachers, in the situation of many other teachers, who very s 

 taught their scholars to go beyond themselves. The local Societies h 

 advantages which no Board of a State Society, or of any one Society 



