THE LATE DR. SAMUEL L. MITCHILL, 
Of the city of New-York, and his labors in aid of Agriculture . 
Number I. 
Mi. Luther Tucker— Your late and lamented asso¬ 
ciate Willis Gaylord, commenced a notice (Cultivator 
Tol. 10th, p. 170) of the essays contained in the printed 
Tolnme of the tc Transactions of the first New-York Ag¬ 
ricultural Society,” and of the men who organized it. 
Among other remarks he observes that “ the leading 
spirits of this association were men of powerful minds, 
far-reaching in their views, and in their practice evidently 
in advance of their age” (Anno. Dom. 1791.) 
In my early days I had a taste and inclination to en¬ 
gage in agriculture; but circumstances diverted me into 
another course, and kept me so for many years, until de¬ 
clining health impelled me to rural pursuits, and the ful¬ 
filment of the wishes of my earlier life. It was then I 
read and studied the old agricultural society’s Transac¬ 
tions, and admired the writings of Livingston, L’Hom- 
medieu, DeWitt, De La Bigarre, and others. Associated 
with these worthy men was the learned Samuel L. 
Mitchill, M. D., with whom the writer was personally 
acquainted, and whose labors in aid of agriculture, and 
in agricultural chemistry, it may be interesting at the 
present day to notice. 
The old Agricultural Society was organized in 1791, 
ami the first address was delivered by Dr. Mitchill in 
1792, before the members of the society and the state le- 
gislaturuthen holding their sittings in the city of New- 
York. It was incorporated in 1793, and the first volume 
of Transactions was published at Albany in 1801. It 
thus appears that it required ten years before materials 
could be collected sufficient to form a volume. When 
the society was organized, it was shortly after the revo¬ 
lutionary war, when agriculture was in a depressed con¬ 
dition, when the settled parts of the state were compara¬ 
tively limited, and when the country had not recovered 
from the ravages of war, particularly the southern part 
which had been in possession of the enemy. The mate¬ 
rials however which form the first volume of the Trans¬ 
actions were written by men who loved their country, 
true patriots, men who were both practical and scientic, 
some of whose writings may be read with advantage, 
even in these days of increased population, extended ag¬ 
riculture, and scientific farming. 
We find by examining the volume of Transactions 
that the society was not purely agricultural. The title 
runs thus— “ Transactions of the Society for the promotion 
of Agriculture, Arts and Manufactures, instituted in the 
State of New-York Thus soon after the war of inde¬ 
pendence, our wise men in the agricultural community, 
saw the necessity of encouraging the mechanic arts and 
manufactures, as well as agriculture, as it had been the 
policy of Great Britain not to let “ even a hob nail” be 
made in the colonies. This policy in relation to these 
United States was continued by the British after the war. 
And it is in the recollection of many, as well as of the 
writer, when English merchants deluged the country 
with their manufactures of wool, and cotton, and iron, 
and leather, and many other articles which our own citi¬ 
zens can now manufacture as well as they. 
Of the five addresses before the the society, as publish¬ 
ed in their volume of Transactions, Dr. Mitchill deliver¬ 
ed two, viz: one in 1792, and one in 1798. In the win¬ 
ter of 1791-2, the legislature met in the old City Hall in 
the city of New-York, and at that session he was a mem¬ 
ber of assembly from the county of Queens, and though 
young, his agricultural, his scientific and general know¬ 
ledge, led him to associate with men of learning, and he 
