88 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE, 



The Repository at this time was one of the most interesting 

 features of the Institute. In the year 1842, in their Report to 

 the Legislature, the Trustees say that " a large and commodious 

 room has daily been open to the public in the city of New York, 

 called the Rej}ository of the Jimerican Institute, a portion of which 

 has been appropriated for exhibiting improvements in manufac- 

 tures, labor-saving machines, models, &c., for the furtherance of 

 agriculture and the arts, which has been the resort of vast num- 

 bers in quest of useful improvements." 



And again in a memorial signed by General Talmadge, the 

 President, I find that what was very properly called the Museum 

 of the Institute, was at that time regarded as both useful and 

 attractive. "The Repository," says the memorial, "has been 

 for years a place of daily exhibition of models and machines, of 

 specimens of art, invention and discovery, the resort of ingenious 

 men and friends of improvement." 



It is deeply to be regretted that the Repository which appears 

 to have been so popular and to have given so much satisfaction 

 should have been permitted to fall into neglect and disuse, and 

 the valuable models and curious machines therein collected, to 

 be scattered and lost, or given away. 



Another important means adopted by the Institute for more 

 fully carrying out the objects of its charter, was the establish- 

 ment of a Farmers^ Club. The amount of good accomplished by 

 this Association is not easily estimated ; besides the valuable 

 practical information which is weekly conveyed to the public 

 through the medium of this Club ; it has, by conservative action, 

 unquestionably prevented incalculable mischief. The errors and 

 fallacies of learned theorists on agriculture, however plausibly 

 presented, rarely fail to be detected and exposed by the good 

 sense of some of the practical farmers who take part in the Club. 

 I have no hesitation in saying that the learned and ingenious 

 report on the subject of silk, and the culture of mulberry trees, 

 which was submitted to the Institute and strongly endorsed by 

 it, and which was followed by the ruinous and disastrous Morus 

 Multicaulis speculations, could never have received the endorse- 

 ment of the Institute if the subject had been submitted to the 

 ordeal of a club of practical farmers such as now exists, and 

 whose meetings are held in this hall. 



Equally important as an operating branch of the Institute was, 

 the establishment of a 'Board of manufactures, science and art, 



