14 
accompanying this report. Some of these papers are works of no ordi¬ 
nary character, and works in which we, as citizens, may well feel a 
pride; a pride that we have citizens able and willing to prepare such 
papers, and a pride that wohave a Society which thus early has, by in¬ 
ducing their preparation, shows its desire and its power to accomplish 
something beyond the beaten track of regular duty, and which not con¬ 
tent with diffusing science, seeks also to develop new facts and to in¬ 
crease the stores of knowledge already opened to man. 
The finances of the Society are in a sound condition, as will be seen by 
the report of the Treasurer, submitted among the accompanying papers. 
The expenditures made during the year were such only as were demanded 
by actual necessity, and such as could not be dispensed with. This is 
the most difficult part in the whole management of the Society’s affairs, 
since the Committee are constantly reminded of the necessity for great 
economy, and this often while the opportunity for accomplishing much 
good is apparently within their reach, but which they are compelled to 
forego by the necessities of the case. 
In conclusion, the Committee desire to tender their thanks to their 
fellow members of the Society for the kindness with which their labors 
have been met, and to assure them that no efforts on their part shall be 
wanting to aid their successors in the arduous duties they are about to 
undertake. Into their hands the members of the Executive Committee 
commit the Society, with a fervent wish that its past may be but a type 
of its future, or rather that its future may far transcend what its past 
has promised. 
There is one fact of cheering import in regard to our population, and 
upon which high hopes may well be founded—it is that the great mass 
are young, or, at most, middle-aged men—men who, thrown together from 
all climes and conditions, are wedded to no prejudices that are not easily 
overthrown, and who, finding themselves in a new country, with a soil 
whose qualities are almost untried—a climate as yet but little understood, 
are impelled almost by necessity to break away from the fetters of mere 
mechanical effort, and to embark in a wide range of experiments to test the 
capacity of their adopted country for new or improved agricultural pro¬ 
ductions. This condition of things cannot but prove highly favorable in 
its ultimate results. Every successful experiment is an advance—a posi¬ 
tive advance—in the acquisition of useful knowledge, and from these 
