82 RURAL NEW YORK 



ture. In the following year, such a board was con- 

 stituted with an appropriation of $10,000, to be dis- 

 tributed among the several local secretaries for aid 

 in agricultural affairs. This Board of Agriculture 

 with the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture 

 were merged in 1833 into the incorporated New York 

 State Agricultural Society, which took over and con- 

 tinued until a very recent date the functions of the 

 Board, under which an annual volume or repository 

 of agricultural information was published. This an- 

 nual volume was for many years the chief source of 

 agricultural information and inspiration. That So- 

 ciety may be credited with the large amount of atten- 

 tion given to soils and fundamental agricultural facts 

 in the five-volume report on the Natural History Sur- 

 vey of the State published in 1844. About 1849, the 

 Society inaugurated the examination of soils, seeds, 

 fertilizers and food stuffs, which movement became 

 the lineal ancestor of the present division of Farms of 

 the Council of Farms and jMarkets, which was or- 

 ganized as the office of the Dairy Commission in 1884 

 and became the Department of Agriculture in 1893. 



The agricultural fair movement had its largest de- 

 velopment in the period of 1850 to 1870. In 1857 

 there were ninety-seven agricultural societies or fair 

 associations in the State. The early policy of state 

 contributions to the premium list of these fairs has 

 been continued to the present date and for many years 

 was paid from the receipts from licensed gambling on 

 horse races. A state fair was first held in Syracuse 

 in 1841 and for many years it convened in different 



