transactions of the state Agricultural society. 
353 
with the Cultivator editorially, or as a correspondent, 
Mr. Johnson, the other editor, was of the Executive 
Committee. In addition to this, Dr Lee was by the 
Executive Committee made official lecturer to the 
State Society, and was to receive for sale in his lec¬ 
turing excursions, a certain number of the volumes of 
the Transactions for his own benefit. 
Now here was, whether intended or not, a varied 
combination of men and circumstances, pointing all 
to the Cultivator. I am aware that the Editor of the 
Cultivator received no salary of the State Society as 
Recording Secretary. If he has received no compen¬ 
sation indirectly , his labors have been highly disinterest¬ 
ed! He asserts that “all his labors in behalf of the 
Society for three years were bestowed without fee or 
reward.” He himself here makes a new issue. Let 
me ask if he did not receive $1,000, or a surr nearly 
equivalent to this, for merely reading the proof sheets of 
the Transactions of the Society for last year ? If he did 
not, it is strange, for he himself is the authority for it. 
When urging that the Transactions should be sent to 
the Senate (to which Dr. Beekman was opposed 
throughout, and Dr. Lee at first, both desiring them 
to go to the House ; but subsequently Dr. Lee changed 
positions, and voted for their transmission to the 
Senate) he remarked to a fellow-Executive-Com¬ 
mittee-man, who desired the report to go to the House, 
that its being sent to the Senate would benefit him 
(the Editor of the Cultivator) a thousand dollars. 
Was not that $1,000 received from Mr. Van Ben- 
thuysen for reading proofs T If so, were not his official 
position and the patronage of the Society used to assist 
the Cultivator or its editor '{ 
Again: his friends have asserted that the position 
of Recording Secretary alone brought 1500 subscribers 
to the Cultivator. If his friends knew this, he was 
undoubtedly the source of their knowledge. Then 
his service is indeed disinterested! Better that there 
should be a “fee and reward ,” for then there might not 
be a perversion of official patronage to pay for labor 
that apparently was done of mere good will. The evi¬ 
dence that his friends (in interest, if nothing else) have 
urged that he should be Secretary to benefit the Culti¬ 
vator is not verbal , and is in possession, and can be 
produced at once if it be necessary. 
There is connected with this subject another matter 
well worthy of attention. Hitherto, no person has 
been (and it has been said no person could be) an in¬ 
fluential member in the Society unless he had that 
connection with the Cultivator, which springs from 
subscription or indefinite friendly relations. If it be a 
direct result of a design and action in pursuance, then 
have persons been victimised that there might be an 
indirect substitute for a direct “fee and reward.” 
A curious part of this whole system of no “ fee or 
reward,” was witnessed at Albany last winter. A bill 
was introduced into the House, directing every County 
Superintendent of Common Schools in the State, to 
subscribe for as many copies of the Cultivator as there 
were school districts in their counties. The subscrip¬ 
tion and postage to be paid by the State out of the 
School funds. And how was all this to be effected 1 
By these very relations ; by the exercise of that influ¬ 
ence which springs from the possession of executive 
patronage. The committee of the House, to which 
the bill was referred, reported it back and advocated 
its passage ; and every man who stood in a position to 
the Cultivator of either interest or indefinite friendly 
relations , was found urging it in the lobby or the 
House. However, the good sense of the House 
killed the bill. This, if it had passed, would have 
given 12,000 additional subscribers to the Cultivator, 
with the pay certain, and subject to no commissions. 
This was a “fee and reward ” worth working for, and 
evinced a most decided disinterestedness! 
I he reply of the editor of the Cultivator is pro¬ 
fessedly a defence of Mr. Thomas, his co-editor, but is 
one in effect of himself. I have not found fault with 
Mr. Thomas for inserting his prize essays. I con¬ 
gratulate him on his good fortune in winning so many 
of the prizes awarded by the Executive Committee 
for essays; and it was the duty of the Society to 
publish them, and in this, Mr. Thomas, as compiler, 
had no duties to perform. And yet, from the circum¬ 
stances that have surrounded the whole matter of the 
preparation and publication of the Transactions of 
last year, some persons have censured the Executive 
Committee in reference to these very prize essays, it 
having been said, that although the Committee had 
no names appended to the reports, they knew the hand¬ 
writing of Mr. Thomas, and were some of them led 
in that direction by thal knowledge. All this is wrong, 
and it may be that even his essays were not in his 
hand-writing. But it illustrates this one truth, that 
when matters of this kind look suspicious, in one 
particular, the world will deem them suspicious in all. 
My object was to urge the publication of the real 
Transactions of the Society hereafter. Instead of these 
the publishing Committee and Mr. Thomas in con¬ 
junction in the last volume, have substituted speeches, 
theoretical speculations, and essays on the agriculture 
of distant States. Are these Transactions? No! Why 
then publish them ? 
The position I assumed is admitted by the reply of 
the Cultivator ; and all the evasion of coming to the 
rescue of Mr. Thomas, who has not been assailed, is 
mere subterfuge to direct attention from the main 
point to Mr. Thomas and secure sympathy for him 
I asked if it were not giving undue advantage to the 
papers edited by the Recording and Corresponding 
Secretaries of the State Society, that they should be 
allowed to appropriate to themselves the patronage of 
the Society. This is not met, but a new issue is 
raised. Is it not evident from the statement I have 
now made that this is true 1 
In conclusion, are not the Transactions public 
property ? Are not the gentlemen who assume to 
prepare them, accountable to the public for the proper 
discharge of their duties ? The State pays thou¬ 
sands of dollars every year to publish the volume of 
Transactions; and however much the editor of the 
Cultivator may wince, the just expenditure of the 
people’s money will be looked to by those who know 
something of the matter as well as himself. The 
light cannot be hid under a bushel; and I will not 
stand by for one, and see the noble Agricultural So¬ 
ciety of this State, like too many things in New York, 
be made a selfish tool of, and turned from its grand 
design of advancing the public good on the broadest 
possible basis, without lifting my warning voice 
against the measure. 
We shall now see what the Cultivator has to 
say to this, and, perhaps, in my next, if it becomes 
necessary, and it be not deemed too “ ungentlemanly,” 
I may undertake to show how much and how many 
ideas of certain prize essays have been plagiarised from 
others, and foisted on to the Society as original and 
paid for in solid gold. Indeed, I consider the whole 
thing, a sort of Cultivator monopoly,and managed at 
present, almost entirely for the benefit of a favored few. 
New York , Oct. 1845. A Member. 
Mount Hope Botanic Garden and Nurseries, 
Rochester, New York. —We have received cata¬ 
logues from Messrs. Ellwanger & fSarry, the proprie¬ 
tors of this extensive and very complete establish¬ 
ment. and shall be pleased to distribute them. This 
is one of the best nurseries and gardens in "Western 
New York, abounding with excellent varieties of fruit, 
&c., and we heartily commend it to attention. 
