74 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



and the report of its Transactions has been printed annually by 

 the State, in a separate volume, and by an act, passed in 1862, 

 the old system of the early New York and itassachusetts societies 

 has been revived, of collecting information in relation to agricultu- 

 ral and horticultural products, and improvements in the form of 

 answers to printed questions obtained in every school district, by 

 persons paid for that purpose out of the fund appropriated to the 

 county agricultural societies. This plan of State and county agri- 

 cultural societies, holding annual fairs in connection with the incen- 

 tive of rewards and premiums, sustained in part by aid from the 

 State, and organized under State laws, was adopted, after the ex- 

 ample of New York, in Ohio in 1846, in Michigan and New Hamp- 

 shire in 1849, in Indiana and Wisconsin in 1851, in Massachusetts 

 and Connecticut in 1852, in Illinois and Vermont in 1853, in Ten- 

 nessee and California in 1854, in Maine in 1856, and in Iowa in 

 1857, and the S3^stem may now be regarded as permanently estab- 

 lished, its importance and value becoming more apparent with 

 each succeeding year. 



This, ladies and gentlemen, ends my narrative. It shows that 

 the unexampled growth and progress of the useful arts, and espe- 

 cially of manufactures, since the middle of the last century, has 

 been dae mainly to these causes. Discoveries and inventions which 

 have multiplied the ability, to produce, and lessened the cost of 

 production. The dissemination of practical scientific knowledge 

 among the working classes, greatly advancing the intelligence and 

 skill of those whose labor has to be relied on. The incentive of 

 rewards and premiums; the stimulus given by industrial exhibi- 

 tions ; and lastly, the passage of laws securing a patent right to 

 inventors. 



These means have been made effective in France chiefly by the 

 aid of the government, and in Great Britain by tlTe corporative 

 efforts of societies, which are spread like a great net work through- 

 out every part of the kingdom. In both of these countries the 

 effort has been steady and continuous. With us it has been desul- 

 tory and spasmodic. England and France, it is true, possess some 

 natural advantages — Great Britain in her metalic and mineral 

 wealth, and France in the fortuitous circumstances of a climate 

 peculiarly adapted to the culture of the vine, the rearing of the 

 silk worm and to the imparting of those bril.iant dyes and colors 

 which give to French fabrics their enviable superiority. But these 

 nations, as my narrative will have shown, have not relied merely 

 upon these advantages, but have done every thing which 

 intelligence, energy and organization could do to stimulate the 



