PREFACE. 
h 
cramped by a poverty of means, and not permitted 
^to expand into action. 
. Although the title of the society points at the 
USEFUL ARTS generally, it is intended to consider 
agriculture the chief, and to make improvement in 
it always a principal aim. Possessing a soil and 
climate different from those of the countries to 
which we are accustomed to look for precedents ; 
finding labor more difficult to be obtained than 
lands, and being in a variety of other respects situ¬ 
ated under circumstances dissimilar from those of 
other nations, we have a field for improvement be-^ 
fore us, absolutely boundless, and no pains should 
be spared to make advances in it; but the means 
competent to this end can be expected only from 
the government. Here to be lavish would be true 
national economy. The future usefulness of the 
^ociety will therefore, in a great measure, depend 
on an extension as well as a continuance of the 
patronage of the state. 
